Health and Social Care

The work of the Care for Older People’s team so far

June 23, 2014 by Eilidh Smith No Comments | Category Uncategorized

It has been 6 months since we updated you all on the work the care for older people team would be taking forward in 2014. We felt it was time to give an update on these projects.

Reshaping Care for Older People: The Director-General of Health & Social Care and Chief Executive NHSScotland appeared at the Public Audit Committee on the 30^th of April to look into RCOP and the Change Fund. He agreed to provide more data so that scrutiny of the outcomes for older people can take place. There has already been much achieved as set out in the Getting on report but we must not be complacent. The Outcomes framework for reshaping care for older people is under development and should be launched in July (in hard copy form) with the interactive model and nested models being available on the JIT website later this year. We hope this will be a helpful and useful tool for all those trying to evidence and assess the interventions that lead to positive outcomes for older people.

UK Care Act: The Care Act 2014 was introduced in the House of Lords on 9 May 2013 and received Royal Assent on 14 May 2014. Work is now underway to complete the secondary legislation to supplement the Care Act, a consultation has been launched seeking views on the draft regulations relating to the Care Act 2014 on cross-border placements, dispute resolutions and provider failure.

Care Information Scotland: We have been working closely with NHS24 and key stakeholders on the redesign of Care Information Scotland. SNOOK – a service design company – were appointed to carry out engagement with stakeholders and provide recommendations on how the site can be improved. The first bulletin of the redesign project was published in May. If you would like to sign up to receive information on the project please email: CISRedesign@nhs24.net.  Our target date for a refreshed site is March 2015 and we will be utilising the Government’s new digital mygov.scot platform. We are pleased that our project is being taken forward as one of the first to be built around the new platform where one will be able to find any public service even if they don’t know which organisation supplies that service.

The Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 will put in place arrangements for integrating adult health and social care, in order to improve outcomes for patients, service users, carers and their families and to enable Health Boards and local authorities to work together effectively to deliver quality, sustainable care services. Integration authorities will be accountable for delivering new Health and Wellbeing outcomes. NHS Boards and local authorities will put in place integrated budgets, delegated to their local integration authority, to ensure better, more effective use of their total resources.

National health and wellbeing outcomes: The national health and wellbeing outcomes went out for consultation on the 12^th May. This will run until the 1^st of August.

We are currently working closely with stakeholders to produce a draft of the guidance. The guidance will expand on the definitions of each outcome and expand on what “good” outcome for each 9 might look like.

Free Personal Nursing Care: Each year we consider the rates set for Free Personal Care, Personal Expenses allowance (“PEA”), Capital limits and savings disregard to ensure that the value is maintained; making regulations to implement the revised rates.

Revised rates for Scotland 2014/15

Free   Personal Care     £169

Nursing Care                 £77

PEA                                 £24.55

Capital   limits:

Lower                             £16,000.00

Higher                            £26,000.00

Savings   disregard:

Single                             £5.95

Couple                           £8.95

Residential Task Force: The Residential Task Force report was published on 31^st March this year. It contains 34 recommendations around the future of the care sector in general and specifically around residential care. We will be working in close partnership with COSLA, Scottish Care, members of the task force and across the care sector on taking forward the recommendations of the report. We’re already participating in discussions with COSLA and care providers around the recommendation to pay the Living Wage to all workers in the care sector, something that the Scottish Government has been keen to encourage. In addition, at the Scottish Care at Home Conference the Cabinet Secretary announced an intention to also look at non-residential care within the scope of the Task Force.  Further details will follow.

British-Irish Council: The latest officials meeting was held in Belfast in March. The Northern Ireland Commissioner for Older People and the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People presented during the two days and highlighted the importance of social inclusion to preventative care. The Commissioner for Older People noted the positive contribution which older people make to our society, along with the importance of valuing an ageing workforce and reviewing the adequacy and effectiveness of law and social policy in relation to older people. Specific policies such as Free Travel, the Active Ageing Strategy and Adult Safeguarding were also discussed.

We are currently in the midst of producing a report to highlight the work that has been done in the group over the last few years. The group are due to meet in November in Edinburgh where they will discuss and finalise the content of this report. A Ministerial meeting is also being organised for March 2015 to showcase the learning from the report and discuss future plans for the social inclusion strand of the Council.

Adults with Incapacity part 4: We are working  to produce a training module as part of bigger measures to protect vulnerable adults from harm. Secondary legislation has been updated in light of Welfare Reform and to reflect the full range of options available to people to enjoy as part of their daily lives which care home managers can procure on their behalf. We are now looking at ensuring there is an uptake in the powers and working with the Scottish Government’s Adult Protection team led project which involves a wide range of stakeholders to ensure we can provide a comprehensive training package to protect and support vulnerable adults – we will keep you updated on this.

Power of Attorney: We have asked Age Scotland to build on the excellent campaign led by Glasgow City Council ‘Start the Conversation’. Age Scotland’s work will focus on building awareness for older people and they will engage with solicitors and others to ensure people have in place the arrangements they want should they no longer have capacity to make decisions about their finances or welfare for themselves.

Meal Makers: We are hoping to launch Meal Makers later this Summer. Casserole Club upon which Meal Makers is based gets neighbours cooking for neighbours (mostly older people who are not capable themselves). The Food Train will run the scheme and preparations are underway (with joint funding from the Rank Foundation and Scottish Government). The idea came from a study tour of London into food access/ poverty. The study tour group has now become an official level older people’s food task force to share good policy and practice, influence and gather evidence. The UK Malnutrition Task Force has estimated the costs of malnutrition at between £5-13ns per year in terms of hospital admissions and susceptibility to disease. We will keep you updated as the task force’s work progresses.

15 minute visits: ADSW held an event on the 8^th May for professionals to look at how we commission services in the future. There was discussion around the use of 15 minutes. At the Scottish Care at Home Conference Alex Neil provided clarity that 15 minutes while appropriate in some cases were not right where complex care needed to be delivered in a dignified manner. The Task Force which will extend to look at non-residential care will consider this issue further so commissioning for services can get it right for the individual concerned.

Pharmaceuticals: The Prescription for Excellence Steering Board met for the first time on 23rd April. Chaired by Professor Sir Lewis Ritchie, Director of Public Health at NHS Grampian and Professor of General Practice at the University of Aberdeen, the Steering Board will provide an overview of the implementation of Prescription for Excellence which will include setting timescales, identifying priorities and risks, and assessing progress against each action point. We will keep you updated on the work we are doing in regards to the implementation of Prescription of Excellence.

Care Opinion: A one year pilot to bring Care Opinion to Scotland has been funded by the Scottish Government. Like Patient Opinion, which has been rolled out to NHS Boards and provides a platform for feedback on health services, Care Opinion will allow users the chance to share their experiences of care. Providers will be fully supported to ensure the pilot is a success and people can have positive feedback from any issues they raise. Of course, the site does not change existing mechanisms for raising issues direct with providers in the usual way, with the Care Inspectorate or through the Social Work Complaints process.

Comments