Scotland’s Digital Health and Care Strategy – Enabling, Connecting and Empowering has been released today to strong criticism from Scottish Care, the representative body for independent social care services in Scotland.
The sector body expressed their profound concerns about the Strategy’s contents, specifically its failure to recognise the crucial role of the independent care sector which delivers the vast majority of care in Scotland and employs over half of the total social services workforce.
CEO Dr Donald Macaskill said:
“The failure to include the independent care sector as a partner in the new digital strategy is breathtakingly insular and a huge missed opportunity. In doing so, the real dynamic, technical and digital innovation happening in social care has been ignored.
“Instead, the Strategy seems to focus on statutory bodies ‘getting their house in order’ before extending to other parts of the health and social care sector. In reality, the vision of the Strategy can only be achieved by true partnership with the third and independent sector from the outset.
“After all, this sector supports 90% of all care home residents in Scotland and delivers over 60% of all home care hours. An effective health and social care system simply cannot be realised without this sector’s meaningful involvement.
“It is hugely disappointing and indeed dangerous that the Scottish Government continues to dismiss the contribution of care providers despite all the ways in which it relies on them to support Scotland’s most vulnerable citizens.”
