The latest information about the Care About Physical Activity improvement programme from the Care Inspectorate.
For more information about this, please contact National Project Lead for Workforce Matters, Katharine Ross
CAPA improvement programme update OCT 2017
The SSSC Register for Care at Home and Housing Support opened on 2nd October 2017.
As registration will be a new process for many workers employed in our member organisations, we have been working alongside SSSC colleagues to set up a series of information events across the country. The purpose of these events is to advise providers and individual staff members of their responsibilities with regards to registration. Support will also be provided along with advice on where to find resources to help make the registration process as straightforward as possible for new registrants and the organisations they work for.
Following the events for Care at Home/Housing Support services, secondary events will be arranged to explore the challenges of Post Registration Training & Learning (PRTL). These will be open to all providers – Care Homes as well as Care at Home/Housing Support.
To register to attend these free events please contact the relevant Local Integration Lead via email. Their details are contained within the events section of our website and you can click through to this below:
A Social Work Practitioner perspective of SDS
Those three little words…………………………………….
Yep we love to hear those important three little words – no not those three little words – Valentine’s Day is long gone – the second most important three little words – Self Directed Support!!
Jings – I hear you all gasp in horror – oh no not those three little words!!!!!!!
Those words many practitioners and people who use services still do not fully understand, the words that make beads of sweat appear on the foreheads of budget holders.
The Act brought a sigh of relief for practitioners, allowing them to really help service users and support them in a way that was meaningful, that was until the reality of the effects on every day working started to fall into place. The realisation that for older people, it is difficult to think out of the box when it comes to care needs given that older people rarely have money left in their budgets after personal care need costs are met. Practitioners are not actually able to build relationships with service users and really get to know them in the way that legislation suggests, as they are so bogged down with budgets, costs and charges, they are actually no longer able to spend time with people.
It seems that all people see with SDS is cuts. Practitioners stuck in the middle between budget holders telling them they need to cut packages, and service users seeing their packages being cut to essential care only. Waiting lists for day centres soar as it is cheaper and easier to source than one to one support. SDS encourages moving away from traditional services, yet more people are being pushed into them as it is an easier option. The transparent system is in no way transparent, with many people not knowing they have a budget or how much is in it, never mind the 4 options that many practitioners still do not fully understand.
Practitioners are still being asked by budget holders “what services does the service user want?” and “how much does it cost?”, before the budget has been agreed – panicking that a service user may want supported in a different way – oh no!! The power imbalance, further tipping the scales in the budget holder’s direction.
The new legislation that is meant to make everyone fair and equal has in practice created a postcode lottery and instead of bridging the gap of inequality, only widening it further.
How do we fix it? SDS is a fantastic idea on how service users should be supported yet budgets, paperwork, systems and fear do not allow it to work in an easy and seamless way. This needs to be challenged, and some of the work I have been doing with Scottish Care around promoting and implementing SDS is starting to gain traction in this area. For instance, I have been invited to work in a local area who have recently acknowledged they are “behind with SDS”, to improve their SDS systems and promotion, and have been working with Carers organisations in advance of changes to legislation for carers, giving them access to SDS. But I continue to wonder if a 10 year strategy is the solution!? It’s 30 years until I will be an older person and I wonder if even that is enough time to get it sorted; to allow me the power to be the expert in my own life (which I am) and the ability to be supported in a way that is meaningful to me, and enables me to have a good life. Just in the same way that every older person should be today.
People who have died remain a part of our lives – their stories are our stories, yet many Scottish traditions relating to the expression of loss and remembrance have faded over time.
To Absent Friends gives people across Scotland an excuse to remember, to tell stories, to celebrate and to reminisce about people we love who have died. To Absent Friends, a People’s Festival of Storytelling and Remembrance is an opportunity to revive lost traditions and create new ones.
The annual To Absent Friends festival will take place across Scotland from 1-7 November 2017.
More details can be found at https://www.toabsentfriends.org.uk/content/festival/
Over 125 delegates from across Scotland will gather in Glasgow today (Friday 27th) to take part in a conference entitled: ‘Choice, Empowerment, Protection… Can we Achieve them all?’ A human rights-based approach to supporting, empowering and protecting older people.’
The event is being held by Action on Elder Abuse Scotland in association with Scottish Care and brings together individuals from statutory, third and independent sectors.
Speaking ahead of the event, Dr Donald Macaskill, CEO of Scottish Care said:
‘Scotland is fortunate in having human-rights based legislation which seeks to support and protect some of the most vulnerable members of our community.
Regrettably incidents of harm and abuse still take place and it is critically important that those who work and support older Scots have an opportunity to come together to ensure our protection can be even stronger and better. Scottish Care is therefore delighted to support and be involved in this event.
Adult protection and support covers the whole range of our lives. The way we allocate funds and spend our money – or choose not to – on health and social care is a human rights issue. For too many individuals today financial austerity and decisions are placing them at greater risk. That’s the case whether it is as a result of the critical shortage of specialist adult protection staff in our local authorities or the stripping out of funding to train homecare or care home staff. Both have the effect of increasing risk and a potential of resulting in actual harm.
We have great legislation and it would be an immense pity that a failure to resource protection increases the risk of harm.
The event today offers a real opportunity for different agencies to come together and put human rights and dignity at the heart of the way in which Scotland seeks to protect and support its citizens.”
Ends
Description of event:
‘At the heart of Scotland’s unique adult support and protection framework is a commitment to upholding the human rights of those it is intended to support. It’s main aims are to identify, support and protect adults at risk of harm.
Yet, many practitioners struggle with the tensions between individual autonomy and ‘state’ protection. Is it possible to support and protect adults at risk of harm, while ensuring choice and empowerment for the individual?
Two of Scotland’s leading representative organisations invite you to join our engaging conference to contribute to the debate, share experiences, and find out about national and local developments in this area.’
The Scottish Human Rights Commission would like to hear from people across Scotland about their experiences when it comes to human rights. They have complied a short survey to get the views of as many people as possible.
Could you please help them by sharing this short survey with people in your networks?
They are particularly keen to hear from people whose voices are often under-represented in policy and decision making.
Responses to the survey are anonymous and confidential. The information received will help shape the next phase of Scotland’s National Action Plan for Human Rights.
On 3 August 2017, Scottish Care launched two new reports on the Scottish Government’s flagship Self-directed Support legislation.
The reports have been produced by Scottish Care, the representative body for independent care services, and highlight the opportunities that Self-directed Support can offer older people in deciding their care but which are not being utilised.
Self-directed Support became law in 2014 and signalled radical change in how care should be assessed, chosen and purchased in Scotland, giving far more choice and control to the individual at the centre of that care. However, recent reports have shown that this transformation has not occurred in most parts of Scotland and that older people in particular are being let down by this lack of progress. Scottish Government statistics released in June 2017 indicated that only 27 per cent of people who access social care have been given the option of how their support is delivered through SDS. When further analysed this equates to an even smaller percentage of older persons of whom 86% are opting for the status quo, likely because they are not informed properly of their options.
The first of these new reports highlights the importance of a human rights-based approach to Self-directed Support for Older People and how human rights models can overcome the many challenges currently being faced in implementing it. It stresses the importance of individuals being fully informed and therefore able to claim their rights in relation to their care provision.
The second report is focused on how Self-directed Support can improve day care provision for older people. It emphasises the need for the Scottish Government to put pressure on Health & Social Care Partnerships to release their hold on power around care provision and transfer this to individuals and families, as the law requires.
Both reports reach similar conclusions: that improvements are both possible and required but that the pace of change is slow, and that the majority of older people are still being offered a very limited choice or none at all when it comes to support for anything other than basic personal care.
CEO of Scottish Care, Dr Donald Macaskill said:
“These important reports emphasise that Self-directed Support can make a real difference to people’s lives if implemented properly, but that this opportunity is currently going to waste through the prevailing of inflexible systems and power remaining in the hands of professionals rather than people. In order to make Self-directed Support work, there needs to be concentrated attention given to it by Scottish Government. This includes the need for effective monitoring, adequate resourcing and collaborative working. We cannot continue, at national and local government level, to ignore the human rights of older Scots.”
A Human Rights Based Approach to SDS for Older PeopleCare Cameo - Meaningful Days
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