The Scottish Care Executive and National Committee are meeting today in Glasgow at the Hilton Hotel from 9:30am onwards.
Closing on Friday: Please take part in our important Scottish Living Wage surveys
Closes on Friday: Please take part in our important Scottish Living Wage surveys
For Scottish Care Members:
It is now some time since the 1st October saw the start of the Scottish Living Wage (SLW) for front line care workers. Negotiations for fee rates will be significantly affected both by the introduction of the SLW this year and any future increases.
We want to gain evidence on the impact of the SLW on the care home and care at home/housing support sectors and would be very grateful if you could complete the relevant survey. This will support our ongoing discussions and negotiations, including in relation to the National Care Home Contract and the Care at Home/Housing Support reform process currently underway.
The information given will be treated in the strictest confidence and will be anonymised when analysed to ensure it is non-identifiable.
Please complete one survey per organisation. The surveys can be accessed below:
Care at Home / Housing Support SLW Survey
Please complete the relevant survey by 16 December 2016. It is important that we have a good number of responses to ensure the resulting data is robust.
If you have any questions about the survey, please contact [email protected]
Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
A Scottish Social Care Budget
A statement from Dr Donald Macaskill, CEO, Scottish Care
There has been a great deal of emphasis in the media over the last few days about the need to put additional financial resources into social care funding in England and Wales and I have been asked what should be happening in Scotland.
As many of you will know Derek Mackay, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Constitution is due to make a Statement to the Scottish Parliament on Thursday afternoon (15 December) on the Scottish Draft Budget for 2017-18. This will provide the basis for discussions with Local Government and it will provide some insight into the possible funding of social care over the next year.
Before the Scottish Parliamentary elections earlier in the year Scottish Care issued an Agenda for Care.
This was a ten point plan which asked all candidates to address the issues challenging the sector at the time, and amongst them was the inadequacy of funding for social care for older people, whether that was care home or care at home and housing support services.
Eight months on the care sector in Scotland is under immense pressure. There are several ways in which a Scottish Budget by prioritising social care can help support the reform agenda that is currently underway within Scotland.
- Earlier this year the Scottish Government allocated £250 million to Integrated Joint Boards and part of this has gone to pay the Scottish Living Wage to front line care staff. However the process of achieving this aim has not been without difficulty. Many care home and care at home providers have had to pay on-costs and increase the salaries of those who do not deliver front line care; others have had to draw on reserves and savings to enable them to pay the Living Wage. In other words the welcome Scottish Living Wage initiative has been partly and not fully funded. We call upon the Scottish Government to ensure that any additional increases in the Scottish Living Wage placed upon care providers are fully funded and that consideration is given to other workers in the care sector to ensure equality and fair treatment.
- At present one in four nursing posts in care homes are vacant with providers having to pay exorbitant fees to agencies to ensure services can continue to be safely delivered. We are calling upon Scottish Government to ensure there is dedicated funding to address the nursing shortage in the social care sector including by means of an immediate increase in student placements.
- Together with partners in Scottish Government and COSLA, amongst others, Scottish Care has been engaged in undertaking work to develop an independent and robust mechanism for calculating the true cost of care in care homes and care at home services. We are calling on the Scottish Government to ensure that there is sufficiency of resource to enable the required reform of care home and care at home/housing support services to be fully and properly funded.
We recognise that both local and national Government are under financial pressures and that there will always be competing demands on limited resources.
Scottish Care believes that expenditure on social care even in straitened times is money well spent because it serves as a preventative measure for individuals and in the long term is much more economical.
The cost of not prioritising social care at this time is a very human one. If we do not adequately support our care at home and care home sector we will end up with unsustainable services which will have a direct impact on individuals. We risk older individuals being stuck in hospital unnecessarily with all the trauma and distress that that causes, because without investment there will not be an adequacy of care home or care at home services. Not resourcing social care carries a real human cost.
Scottish Care believes that the time has come for our valuing of our older citizens and those who care for them to be at the heart of financial decision-making. The Scottish Budget offers all of us a potential opportunity to put older people’s care at the heart of our nation. It is an opportunity we should not miss.
Dr Donald Macaskill
CEO, Scottish Care
Next Steps for Primary Care in Scotland
Guest of Honour: Dr Miles Mack, Chair, RCGP Scotland
In advance of the new GP contract due to take effect in 2017, which will abolish the Quality Outcomes Framework and build on the process of integration through the creation of GP clusters this seminar will provide a timely opportunity to discuss the challenges facing primary care in Scotland in terms of changing demographics, resource allocation and service delivery. Delegates will discuss the impact of the new payment system on the workload and role of General Practitioners as expert medical generalists.
They will also assess the Scottish Government’s National Clinical Strategy, published in February 2016, which outlines plans to improve and reform the delivery of primary care over the next 10-15 years through a focus on building multidisciplinary teams integrated with social services and, independent and third sector providers.
Further sessions will focus on the Scottish Government’s £27 million investment in the health workforce and the Chief Medical Officer’s first annual report, published in January 2016, which sets out a new vision for a community-led primary care system. They will also consider the likely impact of the integration of health and social care, due to be completed in April 2017.
The conference is bringing together key stakeholders of primary healthcare including representatives of health consumer organisations, trade unions, local government, representatives of healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, academia, interested and affected charities and service user groups, as well as reporters from the trade and national press.
Dr Miles Mack, Chair, RCGP Scotland has agreed to deliver a keynote address.
Dr Angus Cameron, Author, National Clinical Strategy and Medical Director, NHS Dumfries and Galloway;
Professor Alan Denison, Deputy Director, Institute for Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Aberdeen;
Lorna Hunter, Chair, Voluntary Health Scotland;
Dr Helene Irvine, Consultant, Public Health Medicine, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde;
Bette Locke, AHP Strategic Lead and Services Manager, NHS Forth Valley;
Nicola McElvanney, Chair, Optometry Scotland;
Lesley McLay, Chief Executive, NHS Tayside;
Professor Harry McQuillan, Chief Executive Officer, Community Pharmacy Scotland
Albert Yeung, Consultant, Dental Public Health, NHS Lanarkshire have also agreed to speak.
Neil Findlay MSP, Convenor, Health and Sport Committee, Scottish Labour Party will be chairing the first half of the seminar.
Book your place for the event HERE
Health and Sport Committee asks questions re Scottish Care Nursing Workforce Data report
Health and Sport Committee asks questions re Nursing Workforce Data
The Convenor of the Health and Sport Committee of the Scottish Parliament as part of their Inquiry into Recruitment and Retention has asked the Cabinet Secretary for information relating to nursing recruitment into the social care sector. The Committee raises important questions about the extent to which the current critical shortage in nurses in social care has previously been factored into student intake calculations and what impact any inclusion has had to date.
Scottish Care remains concerned, as was highlighted in evidence given to the Committee by our Chief Executive Dr Donald Macaskill, that the critical level of nurse vacancies and likely ongoing negative impacts caused by Brexit and other factors, needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
You can read the letter at
www.parliament.scot/S5_HealthandSportCommittee/Inquiries/Letter_to_Cab_Sec_-_Final_no_sig(1).pdf
Care Roadshows: Glasgow 28th March 2017
Care Roadshows 2017
Care Roadshows are a series of five free regional care events throughout the UK that are tailored to all decision makers within the care sector including Care Home Owners, Managers and Healthcare Professionals. The Care Roadshow will be coming to Scotland with an event at Hamden Park Stadium on 28th March 2017.
Care Roadshows enable practitioners to source high quality products and services from established suppliers in order to exceed the expectations of their clients. This includes care management systems, catering and laundry equipment, pharmacy services, recruitment, HR plus many more– all integral components for an organisation providing care.
The events provide the chance for like-minded individuals to meet and discuss staying profitable whilst addressing challenges faced in the sector when trying to achieve the highest care rating. The CPD seminars award visitors with an insight and explanation into the current sector trends from experts including Care Inspectorate, CSSIW, CQC, National Care Association and Care Forum Wales.
If you are looking to achieve outstanding levels of care in your organisation, then Care Roadshows are guaranteed to support you in this. There is also the chance to enter a £100 prize draw on the day.
For more information and to register for your FREE ticket, visit www.careroadshows.co.uk or call 01425 838393.
Care Roadshows 2017 locations and dates:
Care Roadshow Glasgow
28 March 2017
Hampden Park Stadium
For more information and to register for your free ticket, visit www.careroadshows.co.uk or call 01425 838393
Dance me to the end of love …New Blog from Dr Donald Macaskill
Dance me to the end of love …
As we grow older the sounds and voices of our life and its conversations change; they continually ebb and flow, re-energise and diminish. Some voices grow quieter and less significant, others lose their fire and passion, their strength and depth; and with the passing of the years many more, grow silent altogether. 2016 has been a year when some of the most familiar voices of my youth and adult life have grown silent. And perhaps more than anyone I have been moved by the death of the singer, poet and philosopher Leonard Cohen.
Leonard Cohen divided people between those who loved his music and those who reached for the mute button. Certainly this was true of my friends, some saw his lyrics as laden with deep insight and profundity about the human condition whilst others thought that he was the depressing master of despair and angst.
I am unashamedly in the former camp and I’ve always admired not just his expressive voice but also perhaps more than anything his creativity with words, rhythm and language. Just before his death he had released an album which according to his son he considered to be one of his best – ‘You Want it Darker’
In an extensive interview in The New Yorker in part promoting the album but also reflecting on what an increasing awareness of mortality gave him, Cohen said:
“At a certain point, if you still have your marbles and are not faced with serious financial challenges, you have a chance to put your house in order. It’s a cliché, but it’s underestimated as an analgesic on all levels. Putting your house in order, if you can do it, is one of the most comforting activities, and the benefits of it are incalculable.”
Indeed though his death was sudden, Cohen had already spoken at length this year of his thoughts about life, death, memory and attachment. One of my favourite Cohen songs was ‘So Long Marianne.’ Just a few months ago Cohen sent a moving final letter to the dying Marianne Ihlen, the subject of his song, who died in Norway on July 29 at the age of 81. They had been lovers and partners for a decade in the 1960s when they had met first in Hydra, Greece.
Marianne’s friend Jan Christian Mollestad told Canada’s CBC radio that he had contacted Cohen, 81, to tell him Ihlen was dying of leukemia and had only a few days to live. He recalled: “It took only two hours and in came this beautiful letter from Leonard to Marianne.
“We brought this letter in to her the next day and she was fully conscious and she was so happy that he had already written something for her.”
Mollestad, a documentary filmmaker, read the letter to Ihlen before she died.
He recalled: “It said:
‘Well Marianne, it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.
“And you know that I’ve always loved you for your beauty and for your wisdom, but I don’t need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey.
“Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road.”
Mollestad told host Rosemary Barton that when he read the line “stretch out your hand”, Ihlen had stretched out her hand.
“Only two days after, she lost consciousness and slipped into death. And when she died, I wrote a letter back to him saying in her final moments I hummed A Bird on the Wire because that was the song she felt closest to.
This story when recounted went viral on the Internet and especially Twitter. Simple words with real depth and meaning between two old friends written by someone with a realisation that his own journey was coming to its close; that the last few beats of his dance were being played.
At Scottish Care we have recently launched project work on palliative care in care homes and care at home services. There are four main strands to this work. The first has been the holding of focus groups with staff who work on the frontline, daily working with, supporting and being with those who are approaching the end of their life. I have been privileged to be present at a couple of these events and have heard rich, challenging, beautiful and harrowing stories. The majority of individuals who die in Scotland today and who are receiving social care supports will, in all likelihood, be supported by someone who works for an organisation which is a member of Scottish Care. We are eager to tell the story of these workers and organisations as they deliver this exceptional care despite challenging contexts. A report on these focus groups and their insights will be available at a workshop on February 8th. Please keep an eye out for an invitation.
The second strand of the work is an online survey which can be completed at
https://www.scottishcare.org/scottish-care-news/sector-news/palliative-care-survey/ ; the third an identification of best practice around Scotland, and the fourth strand is called ‘This speaks to me…’
For many of us it is through the words of poetry and story, through music and art that we are helped to gain insight into the nature of good care and support at the end of life. ‘This speaks to me…‘ is an opportunity for workers, carers and family members to share words, images or music which tell them something about what good palliative and end of life care can or should be.
Leonard Cohen provided a space to talk, music to ponder and images to paint insights which go beyond the ordinary and the tangible; he illustrated that some of the most important lessons in life cannot simply be limited to text, however creative, and I hope we can all take the opportunity of sharing the things, and the voices, that help ourselves and others to ‘dance to the end of … love… down the road.’
Dr Donald Macaskill
Scottish Human Rights Commission raising awareness of Scotland’s National Action Plan for Human Rights
In the lead up to Human Rights Day on Saturday 10 December, the Scottish Human Rights Commission are raising awareness of projects being delivered through Scotland’s National Action Plan for Human Rights (SNAP).
The organisation is highlight a series of case studies of SNAP projects that are helping to realise rights in people’s day to day lives.
Organisations are encouraged to show their support of the activity by tweeting about the case studies using the hashtag #AllOurRights.
The three case studies profile the following projects:
Housing – the Scottish Human Rights Commission and Edinburgh Tenants’ Federation have been supporting residents in Leith to use international human rights as a tool for challenging poor housing conditions and achieve their right to an adequate standard of living. A film about this project was screened yesterday (Wednesday 7th December) at the Scottish Parliament and is available on the Commission’s YouTube channel here.
Poverty – a group of people with lived experience of poverty have come together as a Reference Group for SNAP to seek to influence change. Members from all over Scotland have worked to understand issues such as the effect of the welfare reform agenda on the realisation of disabled people’s rights or the rising number of food banks in the context of the right to adequate, nutritious food.
Health – a participatory research initiative looked at what the right to health means to people whose health is at risk because they live in poverty, face discrimination or have other difficult circumstances. The research took place with two groups of people in Glasgow who experience health inequalities.
The Scottish Human Rights Commission have provided some suggested tweets as follows:
This #humanrightsday, we’re showing how people can build a human rights culture. Share these new case studies #AllOurRights
This #humanrightsday, Scotland has some inspiring stories to tell about building a human rights culture. #AllOurRights
Everyone has the right to health. But what does that mean if you live in poverty? Powerful new case study at #AllOurRights
Poverty is a human rights issue. A group of Scots are using their experiences to influence change #AllOurRights
‘It’s given us the knowledge we need to challenge things’. How human rights is being used to improve housing
For more information please contact
Kirsty Innes ([email protected]) or Emma Hutton ([email protected])
Scottish Human Rights Commission
Governor’s House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DE
0131 244 3550
Direct Dial: 0131 244 4490
www.scottishhumanrights.com @scothumanrights
A reminder from the Care Inspectorate for services to submit their annual return
A reminder from the Care Inspectorate for services to submit their annual return
Each year the Care Inspectorate ask services to complete an annual return questionnaire. This informs the Care Inspectorate about the structure and operation of services and helps the organisation to plan, inform and carry out inspections.
The questionnaire also gives insight into the overall state of care in Scotland, which is then shared with other organisations, such as the Scottish Government and the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC).
Annual returns are available online at eforms.careinspectorate.com between 6 January and 17 February 2017.
Supporting information on the annual returns can be found at careinspectorate.com and answers to frequently asked questions under ‘Annual returns’ in the ‘Professionals’ section. If an answer to a question can’t be found there, services can call the Care Inspectorate eForms helpdesk on 0345 600 9527.
If a service was registered on or after 1 October 2016, they should try to complete an annual return this year. Although it’s not mandatory for these services, any information supplied will be used by the Care Inspectorate and the organisations the information is shared with with.
Please note that inactive services must submit an annual return.
Services can log into their Care Inspectorate eForms account from any computer connected to the internet. If they need help accessing their annual return, they can call the eForms helpdesk on 0345 600 9527.
For more information contact
Communications
Care Inspectorate
Compass House, 11 Riverside Drive, DUNDEE, DD1 4NY
Tel: 01382 207100 ~ Fax: 01382 207289
Email: [email protected]
website: www.careinspectorate.com
The Scottish Sensory Awards
The Scottish Sensory Awards recognise the work of people in the field of sensory impairment, much of which take place in care settings and are unrecognised.
The awards ceremony will be held on Wednesday 15 February 2017 at the Stirling Court Hotel in Stirling.
Following the great success of the 2016 Scottish Sensory Awards the Scottish Council on Deafness (SCoD), and the Scottish Council on Visual Impairment (SCOVI), as the umbrella organisations for hearing and sight loss in Scotland, have taken on the responsibility for the organisation of the 2017 awards.
The Scottish Sensory Awards were created last year to showcase good practice, promote the rights of people living with sensory impairment in Scotland, and recognise the range of work with deaf, deafblind and visually impaired people undertaken across the statutory, third and independent sector services.
This year there will be six categories including one particularly in relation to children & young people.
The Categories are:
1. Promoting choice, control and person centred approaches for people with a sensory loss
2. Personal and workforce development
3. Promoting inclusion and engaging people with a sensory loss across all our communities and services
4. Unsung heroes
5. Innovative work with children and young people with a sensory loss
6. Partnership working across services and sectors for people with sensory loss
Nomination forms, available here, must be returned by Tuesday 10 January 2017, with nominees contacted that week to confirm whether they have been shortlisted.
Details of the nomination process and details of the awards venue can be found at www.sensoryawardscotland.co.uk
