The last few months have been ones in which normality seemed to be impossible to achieve both in terms of work and focus and in terms of care and delivery. As an organisation Scottish Care has sought to represent you our members as diligently and as professionally as possible. We have regretfully had to take the decisions to cancel the face to face events that we had planned for the Care Tech and Care at Home and Housing Support Conference and Awards. We will be going online with these and more about this later in this update. We have also this week taken the decision that the Care Home Conference and Awards will not be held in a physical format this year but will also be virtual. We are intending to hold a Care Home Festival over three days from Wednesday 25th November till Friday 27th November with an Awards Ceremony in the evening of the 27th. We will be starting the Awards application process at the start of September.
The following is a summary of some of the main issues in the week that has passed.
Care Tech 3.
Care Tech 3 will be taking place next Friday the 28 August. A full programme is now available, and tickets priced £12 are now available for purchase.
This is a positive bargain for what looks like a phenomenally engaging programme. The event will feature a range or panel discussion and opportunities to hear the latest developments around technology in social care. There will be a mixture of panel discussions, networking spaces, exhibition and demonstrations. The three panel themes are:
- Technology journeys in care homes and homecare services
- Technology for social connection in social care
- Tech-enabled care in a COVID social care and beyond
Do find out more at https://scottishcare.org/tickets-on-sale-for-care-tech-3-28-august/
Please get involved as we need your support for our events as never before.
Care Inspectorate Consultation.
As mentioned last week our consultation to the Scottish Parliament’s Inquiry on the Care Inspectorate during the pandemic is now live on our website. See https://scottishcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/CI-Inquiry-Aug-20.pdf . We have also seen in the week that is passed the publication of the Care Inspectorate’s own report and analysis during the pandemic. It makes for interesting reading in terms of what it states about care home seize and also the relationship between grades and response to the pandemic. See https://www.careinspectorate.com/images/documents/5783/CI%20Role%20Purpose%20Learning%20during%20COVID-19.pdf
PPE.
The UK remobilisation guidance for health and care settings was published yesterday. This guidance is predominantly about getting back to our previous evidence-based IPC guidance pre-COVID – as detailed in Scotland’s National Infection Prevention and Control Manual (NIPCM) – as health and social care services remobilise and we move to a period of low prevalence/incidence of COVID-19 in the community. See https://scottishcare.org/ipc-guidance-and-letter-from-cno/
This week we have received a number of emails showing concern from staff and others that social distancing seems not to be happening in the wider community especially at schools for those who are parents. We appreciate that this is causing individuals to be concerned about their own safety especially when they are carers in a care home or homecare. We have highlighted this to colleagues in Government.
On the wider PPE issue, a paper was put up to the Cabinet Secretary outlining the possibility of NSS Scotland becoming the main supplier of PPE for the foreseeable future. This will be an important issue for consideration to ensure the stability of the social care sector over the medium to long term. We will advise of the results, but we have been assured that the current hub models (with some local changes) will continue until the end of the year.
Homecare Festival. WEDNESDAY 7TH – FRIDAY 9TH OCTOBER.
We hope to publish early next week an exciting programme for the 3-day virtual Homecare Festival. This will highlight issues faced by care at home and housing support. There will be various sessions over a three-day period, culminating in an Awards Evening on the Friday 9th October evening.
We are looking forward to this opportunity to focus upon and celebrate the amazingly creative and compassionate work being undertaken across Scotland by services.
Care Home Issues.
COVID19 deaths in care homes remain low at 1 to the week ending 16th August.
The Digital Daily Huddle tool has started and over 85% of care homes have registered onto to the tool though many have not started to input data and use it. We will be holding another webinar to answer practical questions on the Huddle Tool. This will be held on Thursday 27th August, 12:15 pm – 1:00 pm. Details to follow on the Scottish Care website.
Last week I indicated that I was due to meet senior officers from the Crown Office who were working on Operation Koper. I have held these discussions which were constructive and helpful. I raised not only the issues of sensitivity in relation to the actual request for information but also some specific practical issues. This meeting was followed by some further email communication. I am pleased to confirm that the request for information is now limited to records and information going back for a 6-month period. I highlighted that many care homes held physical copy and that there were real difficulties complying with the 7-day timescale and to digitise all the information that was necessary. I further indicated that it was especially challenging and traumatic to get relevant records ready and available where there were multiple deaths in the one care home. Following this the Crown Office has spoken to Police Scotland who are altering their letter to care homes to make it more permissive. In other words, whilst the letter may detail no change in the request time I have been assured that if a care home contacts the Police as described in the letter that every effort will be made to accommodate and to ensure that the care home is not over-burdened by the requests and compliance. This also relates to attempts to phase the requests on care homes . The Crown Office felt it was easier to ask for all records on all people at the one time and now understand that some planning and phasing would be helpful. I have further been assured that if there are any other practical difficulties which members raised then I can contact the Crown Office lead directly. I hope these interventions will be positive.
The week started with the Sunday Post ‘revealing’ that a number of people who had tested positive had been discharged into care homes. We sought in a media statement to try to indicate the reasons why someone might have returned or been accepted into a care home. See https://scottishcare.org/scottish-cares-statement-on-hospital-transfers-to-care-homes/. This issue dominated much of the Health debate in Parliament and also First Minister’s Questions on Thursday. At the end of the week we had the Labour leader Richard Leonard continuing the theme by suggesting that those responsible whether clinicians or care home providers should be subject to the full weight of the law. In defence on both points the First Minister agreed an inquiry was necessary and would happen. Scottish Care also stated that as the sector is struggling still to deal with the virus and prepare for the next wave etc that now was not the time for such an Inquiry to start but that we are ‘eager’ when it does to be able to put our views across and make our position clear.
The Care Inspectorate has also published its latest report to the Scottish Parliament on care homes. It can be accessed at https://www.careinspectorate.com/images/documents/5781/Scottish%20Parliament%20fortnightly%20inspections%20report%2019%20August%202020.pdf
I have read many of these reports over the last few weeks and am increasingly concerned that there is a disjoint between what is being written in the narrative and the grades that are being awarded under Q7. It is difficult to see how some grades have been awarded given that the narrative would seem to indicate a higher grade when the framework is taken into account. We will raise these issues with the Care Inspectorate at our regular meetings with them.
In general, the Clinical and Professional Advisory Group met again and considered a range of Guidance – this includes new Guidance on the use of communal space and on supporting the return of professional staff and others. I hope this will be signed off soon so that we can begin the greater return to normality. In addition, a working group has been established – with its terms of reference being confirmed – to explore issues of IPC for the care home sector and environment. This work had already started before Covid19 but clearly now has a greater urgency. I have been at pains, alongside others to stress how critically important it is that we get to the stage that we have processes and procedures in place which are more appropriate to a care home setting rather than simply the transplanting of acute sector IPC into that environment. Providers will be represented on the group and this is in the process of being determined. I am personally convinced that this work will be critical not least in addressing some of the inconsistencies we are seeing in terms of oversight, assurance and inspection visits.
The Care Home Rapid Action group is likely to change its format into a Pandemic Response Group in the next couple of weeks. The remit will be extended to include a focus on other sectors than care homes including care at home and housing support. Its membership will reflect this but also its s cope will broaden to deal with winter planning, flu preparation and EU resilience amongst wider issues.
Care at Home & Housing Support Awards reopen for entries
This last week we re-launched the Care at Home and Housing Support Awards. This offers the opportunity to recognise all the compassion and hard work from the homecare workforce during the pandemic.
We would like to thank everyone who has already submitted nominations in March. These awards entries have been kept and will still be valid. Should you need to make a change to your entry, please contact [email protected].
Please submit your award entries by Monday 31 August.
Entries can be made either online on our website, or by sending a completed Word version of the nomination form to [email protected].
For more information: https://scottishcare.org/cah-awards-2020/
Finance and sustainability
We continue to gather intelligence on the extent to which sustainability payments are not coming through to providers. It appears to us that the majority of providers who are going to make a request for additional support have done so. Karen and Jim Carle are meeting weekly to address these issues with colleagues from COSLA, CCPS and Scottish Government. But yet again we need to get the data from you. So please continue to feed Scottish Care staff with information that will help us address the issues.
As you will be aware the current sustainability support is due to end at the end of September – the letter detailing the latest tranche has stated that this will be tapered off. Whilst it is clear that there is no desire to have a cliff-face in funding we are holding discussions on what this ‘tapering’ might mean in practice. We have also made it clear that we will need to get a clear direction from the sector in response to any reduction of support given the realities of changed circumstances. As an organisation Scottish Care is arguing strongly that there can be no return to the way things are without substantial ongoing fiscal support for a sector which remains extremely fragile.
As part of our concerns we have heard that one major bank is stating that it will not make any further loans to the care home sector until a Covid vaccine has been found. It would be useful to know from members if they are aware of these suggestions. We have written directly to the banks to ascertain if this is commonplace.
Further I have put up on the discussion board a request for information about insurance. We have heard from a number of providers that they are having difficulties accessing or renewing insurance, including the inability to get any cover for Covid19. We need to get this intelligence in order to influence any discussions on sustainability. Please take some time to fill out the discussion board questions.
As I stated last week I have formally requested the commencement of discussions on the National Care Home Contract to commence. I have not received a response.
Testing
Testing has progressed over the past week and it would appear that rates remain high across the country. At least 36,334 care home staff were tested in the week ending 13th August. At least 1,569 individual residents tested.
We were made aware last week that there were some difficulties in terms of time taken to get results back from the portal and that this was having an impact on staff. We hold a meeting on Monday morning with thew Testing Directorate and so if you have an intel on the delays or any other concerns re testing can you please alert me or Caroline Deane as quickly as possible.
Collective Care Futures
The Collective Care Futures project is still ongoing. Please continue to take part by contributing to the Surveys which are still available.
The surveys are available at https://scottishcare.org/project/collective-care-future/
Communication
Next week the Tuesday Surgery will be at the usual time of 11 am and will be hosted by Karen Hedge and myself. We hope to be joined by Scottish Government colleagues or members of the Clinical and Professional Group to answer questions on visiting. Details at the start of the week.
Workforce
The Workforce Bulletin was published this week and can be found at
https://mailchi.mp/85f5e1a18f03/workforce-matters-ebulletin-october-12645399?e=8b93fe8b46
Two things I would want to highlight are:
Scottish Care and SSSC Joint Regulatory Forum Meetings
The next meeting for Care at Home will take place on Monday 24th August 2020 between 10.30am and 12:30pm. This meeting will take place via Microsoft Teams, invites have been sent out, if you would like to attend please email [email protected]
The next meeting for Care Homes will take place on Monday 7th September 2020 between 10.30am and 12:30pm. This meeting will take place via Microsoft Teams, and invites will be sent this week. Again, if you would like to attend this meeting and have not already done so, please email [email protected]
The Regulatory Forum explores how regulation of our services impacts upon Care providers and the social care workforce. SSSC, who co-chair, advise and guide on new initiatives with providers being able to highlight challenges and solutions on topics such as registration, SVQ, qualifications and training among many others. We are also delighted to welcome Liz McPake from the Care Inspectorate and Andrew Morrall from Disclosure Scotland. More input from frontline colleagues and providers can only increase our effectiveness, so please join Caroline and the group where possible.
Workforce Event – 16th September 2020
A Salute to Care Managers: recognising the importance of your own wellbeing
We are delighted to welcome you to join us for our next workforce event ‘A Salute to Care Managers: recognising the importance of your own wellbeing’ which will be held online on Wednesday 16th September 2020.
This event will take place in two parts.
10am – 12pm Home Care and Housing Support organisations and managers
2 – 4pm Care Home organisations and managers
The event will focus on the wellbeing of care managers in each care setting and the challenges each face. We aim to give those participating the opportunity to discus their own experiences dealing with COVID and to gain feedback from managers in the social care workforce as to their specific needs in this area.
Further information will be sent out with invitations to the event in the coming weeks, if you wish to express an interest to attend please email [email protected]
Nursing
Return to Practice Programmes
Return to practice programmes – Things have now got easier. Any care staff wishing to return to practice should consider this programme as a way to do so. The Robert Gordon University (RGU) programme is currently enrolling.
We recognise that staff leave the register for a number of reasons and often later regret this. If you are thinking about returning to nursing practice, then consider returning to work within social care nursing on a paid placement? The programme is provided by Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) and The Robert Gordon University (RGU).
Take advantage of the Gov. supported initiative perhaps for some #lifechangingwork in a care home.
For more information see https://www.nes.scot.nhs.uk/education-and-training/by-discipline/nursing-and-midwifery/careers-and-recruitment/return-to-practice.aspx
and https://learn.sssc.uk.com/careers/
And finally…
In keeping the issues of care and the sector at the forfront of the concern of many please join me in lighting a #candleforcare on Tuesday at 7.00pm
Many thanks
Donald
22nd August 2020
