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Fitness to Practise webinars

The SSSC are holding live and interactive webinars about the changes they are making to the Rules and Decisions Guidance.

This is an opportunity to find out more about the changes and ask questions about how they will work in practice. The free webinars will be hosted by Maree Allison, the Director of Fitness to Practise.  The SSSC will consider any comments made alongside the responses to the consultation

Click on the following link to sign up:

If you would like a paper copy of the consultation please email [email protected]

If you have any queries about the consultation please contact [email protected]

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Ready for Registration?

The registration process for care at home and housing support services begins next year – 2017.  This will affect a large number of our member organisations.

To ensure that members feel supported and informed before and during this process, Workforce Matters is creating a ‘Ready for Registration?’ Working Group.  There was an initial discussion at the Scottish Care/SSSC Regulatory Forum meeting on the 14th June about how we can best support new registrants.  Part of this preparation process will also involve listening to the needs of care home organisations who have gone through the process, and now require to ensure their workforce continue their professional development.

There will be more information about getting involved in this forum on our website over the coming months.

We will be involving managers as well as front line support workers throughout this process.

For more information please contact Katharine Ross.

If you would like to become a member of the Scottish Care/SSSC Regulatory Forum that meets 3-4 times a year, please contact Katharine Ross.  We are always keen to welcome new members.

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New Workforce Development consultant

Scottish Care is delighted to announce that Elaine MacMaster has joined Scottish Care as a Workforce Development Consultant, working within the Workforce Matters project.

Her role is to enhance and develop the skills, knowledge and professionalism of the workforce within the independent care sector alongside National Workforce Development Lead, Katharine Ross.

Elaine is a Registered Nurse who worked on the frontline in nursing for 7 years in the NHS and for a short time overseas. She worked in a variety of disciplines such as acute care, day surgery and in nursing homes.

After nursing on the frontline Elaine developed a keen interest in Human Resources and decided to embark upon a post graduate HR course becoming an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Her most recent role was HR Manager for a successful Private Home Care organisation based in Edinburgh – Aspen Hamilton Care Management.

While working as HR Manager Elaine was also keen to develop her knowledge within the Third Sector and to experience working at Board Level. She was a member on the Board of Care and Repair Edinburgh and latterly the Chair of the Board for 18 months.

Keen to see the Health and Social Care Workforce recognised and fully involved in the work they do, with a background in frontline NHS and also in Social Care, she is well equipped to do so.

Elaine lives in Edinburgh with her husband and two children, for whom she provides an excellent taxi service! Elaine enjoys all types of cycling especially mountain biking.

Elaine is keen to be of assistance to providers – please do not hesitate to contact her. Elaine’s contact details are available under the Workforce Matters Contact section.

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End of Life & Palliative Care resources

Katharine Ross, Scottish Care’s Workforce Lead, was recently invited to speak at a Scotland Policy Conferences Keynote Seminar at the beginning of June.

The title of the event was  ‘Next steps for palliative and end of life care: access, delivery and integration.  

Katharine’s presentation is available here.  We hope this emphasises the importance of involvement and integrated co-production that Scottish Care place in the development of end of life and palliative care.

Scottish Care has recently been invited to participate in the development of end of life and palliative care learning and educational material.  Although this project is in the initial stages of development, we will soon be inviting Scottish Care members to engage in discussions with NES and SSSC.  More information will be coming out soon.

If this is an area you or your organisation would like to get involved in please contact Katharine directly – [email protected]

 

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Consultation on changes to SSSC Registration and Fitness to Practise Rules and Decisions Guidance

The SSSC are consulting on the SSSC Registration and Fitness to Practise Rules (the rules) and the Guidance for Fitness to Practise Panels on Making a Decision (guidance).

These are the main documents that set out the way:

  • they manage the Register
  • their hearing process works
  • their panel members decide the appropriate sanction.

The consultation is open from 1 June 2016 until 5pm on 31 July 2016.  It is important that providers take part in this important consultation, or give their feedback to Scottish Care.

When the consultation ends the SSSC will consider whether there are any changes they need to make to improve the draft versions, for example:

  • add in anything that has been overlooked
  • make the rules clearer
  • suggestions and improvements
  • make changes to prevent any unintended consequences if a rule change will have an impact on a stakeholder they have not considered.

Start the consultation

View a PDF of the consultation

For more information, visit the SSSC website.

Webinars

The SSSC are holding live and interactive webinars about the changes they are making to the Rules and decisions guidance.

This is an opportunity to find out more about the changes and ask questions about how they will work in practice. The free webinars will be hosted by Maree Allison, the Director of Fitness to Practise.  The SSSC will consider any comments made alongside the responses to the consultation.

The webinars are running on the three dates listed below. Click on the following links to sign up:

Contact details

If you would like a paper copy of the consultation please email [email protected]

If you have any queries about the consultation please contact [email protected]

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New dementia learning resources

The SSSC have published updated versions of their popular dementia learning resources.

These SSSC resources will help you gain the right level of knowledge and skills in dementia care and support.

Background

The Scottish Government asked the SSSC (in partnership with NHS Education for Scotland (NES)) to create these resources so workers across health and social services are better supported in providing high quality care and support to people with dementia, their families and carers. Better experiences in Scotland’s health and social services means a much better quality of life for everyone affected by dementia, which is the main aim of Scotland’s National Dementia Strategies.

Informed about Dementia

This video resource has five chapters and provides the baseline knowledge and skills for everyone working in health and social services, even services for children.

Once you’ve watched the videos you can apply for an Informed about Dementia Open Badge which is a digital certificate to recognise learning and achievement.

Watch the videos and find out how to earn an Open Badge here.

Dementia Skilled – Improving Practice

This resource also has five chapters and will help you achieve the level of practice required by all workers who have a direct role supporting people with dementia, their families and carers. Reflective account questions are included which are an optional form of assessment. If you write reflective accounts of the right depth they may help you progress towards a work-based award, for example the SVQ Social Services and Healthcare at SCQF level 7.

Access the resource on the SSSC website under dementia informed and dementia skilled practice levels.

Coming up

More guidance will be available soon to help everyone involved in dementia learning get the most from their experience of using Dementia Skilled – Improving Practice. The guidance will be available on the SSSC Learning Zone and will include helpful advice for learners, managers and assessors.

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New resource to help make better decisions

The SSSC have launched a new learning resource to help workers make better decisions when faced with difficult situations in the workplace.

Making better decisions is an online interactive learning tool that allows learners to explore their knowledge and understanding of how to manage some of the dilemmas and challenging situations that can happen in social service settings.

In the new resource learners face a range of scenarios and have to decide what they would do in the circumstances. This means they are able to make decisions in a safe environment where making a wrong choice will not affect the outcomes for people using services or themselves.

All the scenarios in the resource contain issues and aspects that often feature in SSSC fitness to practise investigations. This will help social service workers learn more about the types of decisions that could lead to investigations about fitness to practise. More scenarios to reflect other common issues will be added in future.

A key aspect of the resource is that it gives the learner the opportunity to write a short explanation of the decisions they make and compare this to feedback about the potential outcomes of their choices. This could help the learner identify gaps in their knowledge or misunderstandings about what is the appropriate action to take.

The main aim of Making better decisions is to help reduce the number of SSSC fitness to practise investigations. However, you can use it in many ways, including:

  • as part of induction
  • to help workers develop their knowledge
  • understand of how to manage challenging situations.

The resource can be accessed here: http://learn.sssc.uk.com/ftp/