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The Care Inspectorate are changing their inspections – and would like your thoughts

The Care Inspectorate is developing new approaches to scrutiny. They want to make sure inspections, and our other scrutiny work, are strongly focused on assessing the quality of people’s experiences, and understanding the difference care and support makes to their lives.

From 1 April 2018, the new Health and Social Care Standards will be used across Scotland. The Care Inspectorate’s expectation is that they will be used in planning, commissioning, assessment, and delivering care and support. They will be used in making decisions about care quality. This means that there will be changes in how care and support are inspected.

During 2018, on an incremental basis, the Care Inspectorate will roll-out a revised methodology for inspecting care and support services, starting with care homes for older people. The changes will build on approaches they have introduced in the past three years: an emphasis on experiences and outcomes for people, proportionate approaches in services that perform well, shorter inspection reports, and a focus on supporting improvement in quality.

The core of the new methodology will be a quality framework which sets out the elements that will help inspectors answer key questions about how good the quality of care and support is, what difference it is making, and the strength of the things that contribute to that.

The primary purpose of a quality framework is to support services to self-evaluate their own performance. The same framework is then used by inspectors to provide independent assurance about the quality of care and support.  By setting out what is expected in high-quality care and support provision, it can help support improvement too. Using a framework in this way also supports openness and transparency of the inspection process.

The Care Inspectorate have involved people who experience and provide care and support in developing a draft quality framework. This is based on the approach used by the European Foundation for Quality Management, specifically the EFQM excellence model. This is a quality tool widely used across sectors and countries. They have adapted the model for use in care and support settings, and have used the new Health and Social Care Standards to illustrate the quality they expect to see. The framework was tested in a small number of care homes in 2017, and more tests are being carried out in early 2018. These tests will be evaluated to hear the views of people experiencing care, their carers, and care providers.

What are the Care Inspectorate consulting about?

The Care Inspectorate are inviting you to look at the draft quality framework they have developed for care homes for older people, and to complete their consultation survey. Your feedback, and the evaluations of the tests, will help shape the final quality framework for care homes for older people in April 2018.

You can access the draft framework and consultation survey here: http://cinsp.in/QFsurvey

Please respond by 23 February.

Scottish Care will also be responding to the consultation.  If you would like your comments to be incorporated into our response, please contact: [email protected]

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Mentor and Charge Nurse Annual Survey 2018

Pre-registration Nursing and Midwifery Education Programmes in Scotland: Mentor and Charge Nurse Annual Survey 2018.

The following survey from NHS Education Scotland is for Charge Nurses, Team Leaders and Care Home Managers.

Mentor & Charge Nurse Survey 2018

The survey is live from today (Monday 15 January 2018) and will close on Friday 27 April 2018.

The Pre-registration Nursing and Midwifery Programmes are funded by the Scottish Government and are reviewed annually to maintain and enhance the quality of nursing and midwifery education in Scotland.

Survey organisers believe it is highly important that care home managers are included within this review.  Partners in delivering the pre-registration programmes, are encouraged to engage actively in constructive evaluation and also as a commitment to future generations of students. The findings of the survey contribute to joint action planning between the universities and NHS Boards to enhance the pre-registration nursing and midwifery programmes.

The short web based questionnaire seeks information on the strengths and challenges of the programmes and gathers your thoughts on any improvements that may be required. A similar questionnaire is also sent to final year students.

For further help please contact Angela Curran, NMAHP Project Officer at: N&[email protected]

 

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Scottish Care & Life Changes Trust announce new human rights fund for care homes

Rights Made Real in Care Homes

The Life Changes Trust, in partnership with Scottish Care, is delighted to announce a new grants fund, and is seeking applications from care homes in Scotland.  The care home must demonstrate that it can run a project (or similar) that will actively promote the human rights of residents living with dementia.

The fund was officially launched at Scottish Care's 'Raising the Standards' event in Glasgow on Wednesday 29 November 2017.

Speaking about the new fund, Dr Donald Macaskill said:

"I am delighted that Life Changes Trust has dedicated £300,000 to work alongside Scottish Care to further embed human rights in Scotland’s care homes. I look forward to seeing a whole range of creative projects which will help care homes to get even better at delivering a human rights based approach to care".

Anna Buchanan, Director for the People Affected by Dementia Programme at Life Changes Trust, said:

“The funding on offer from the Life Changes Trust is for initiatives in care homes that demonstrate better ways of making rights real for people who live there. Care home residents still have a life to live and they have the right to thrive. Older people, including those living with dementia, have a right to maintain strong connections with family and friends, with their communities and with the things that matter to them. They do not give up these rights when they cross the threshold of a care home. We are looking to fund creative and innovative projects and ways of working that will benefit people living with dementia and show others how to make rights real in care homes.”

Care homes can apply for up to £20,000 to be spent over a period of up to 24 months.

To view guidance on the Rights Made Real fund and how to apply, click here.

Applications must be made via the Trust’s online application portal, which opens on 29th November 2017 and will close on Friday 9th March 2018.

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Sue Ryder Report: Rewrite the Future

Commenting on the Sue Ryder Rewriting the Future Report published today (14 September), Scottish Care CEO Dr Donald Macaskill said:

"The importance of place for wellbeing cannot be emphasised enough. We all know the dislocation and dis-ease which we feel when we are ‘out of our comfort zone’ or not ‘in our own place.’ It is therefore self-evidentially important that individuals living with neurological conditions are able to have that critical part of their wellbeing and health attended to. This is clearly not happening in Scotland today for too many citizens.

 

"The research from Sue Ryder highlights that there are simply too many individuals who are living where they do not want to be and where, frankly, they should not be. Let us be clear this is not the fault of the care home sector which has over the years developed person-centred care and support for thousands of individuals. But the care home sector has become specialist in the rights based care of older individuals many of whom are living with advanced dementia and a majority of whom are being supported by palliative and end of life care. With some notable exceptions there are few care homes which are geared up to the particular, specialist and challenging care and support of many individuals with diverse neurological conditions.

 

"The continued expectation that the care home sector is currently equipped and resourced for specialist neurological care does a disservice not only to the individuals and families involved but also critically to the staff who work in care homes and other residents who live there.

 

"At its heart this is an issue of human rights, dignity and autonomy. If individuals are being placed in communities, which despite their best efforts, are not skilled and equipped to meet their individual outcomes then the rights and dignity of those impacted are not being respected, valued or upheld.

 

"It is time for all stakeholders involved to resource and invest in the dignity of those living with neurological conditions and that means by adequately skilling up, staffing and resourcing specialist residential and nursing care homes and in part by recognising that currently the system is not working for those who need to find a place to be, who need a place for me."

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Meal Makers – Information for members

Meal makers is a community food sharing project that started as a pilot project in Dundee in August 2014 and proved to be an instant hit across the city. It has since been launched in Glasgow, Perth and Kinross, Renfrewshire, Edinburgh, Stirling, North Ayrshire and the Scottish Borders. The idea behind Meal Makers is really simple – they connect people who love cooking and want to be active in their community (‘Cooks’), with older (55+) neighbours (‘Diners’), who would appreciate home cooked food delivered to them every now and again.

So how does this work in practice?  When a Meal Makers cook is preparing their evening meal for themselves and their family, they will prepare one extra portion of their home cooking and take it round to an older neighbour at a time which suits both parties. Not only does the project provide a way for older adults to enjoy freshly prepared nutritious home cooking (particularly older adults who might find it difficult to enjoy home cooking otherwise), but it also helps bring communities together and combats the social isolation experienced by many members of the older population. How often meals are shared, and when they are shared is left entirely up to the Cook and Diner to decide between themselves. Meals are most commonly shared on a weekly basis, but they can occur fortnightly, monthly or just now and again.

If you know an older person who would like to take part in the service and receive a meal from a friendly neighbour please call Meal Makers on 0800 783 7770 or if you would like to do something great with an extra plate, then please visit www.mealmakers.org.uk. Alternatively you can email [email protected].

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Care Service Providers Survey

The Scottish Government’s Self-Directed Support and Care Inspectorate sponsorship team is seeking help to shape their planning to fulfil the following aims:

  • Implementation of the SDS action plan 2016-2018
  • Promoting the new Health and Social Care Standards which are aligned to SDS practice
  • Exploring Care Inspectorate practices with a view to promoting a greater degree of innovation and creativity
  • Supporting the CI conduct Thematic Inspection of 6/7 Local Authorities in 2017-8 focusing on the implementation of SDS, choice and control

Scottish Care members are invited to please complete the attached Care Service Providers Survey by the 16th August.