Health and Social Care

National Care Service: why it’s everyone’s business

September 8, 2022 by Anna Kynaston No Comments | Category National Care Service

I’m Anna Kynaston and I’m Deputy Director in the Social Care and National Care Service Development Directorate.

Over the last 12 months I have been listening to the views of people, stakeholders and public partners about community health and social care in Scotland. As part of that I have been lucky enough to get out and about, meeting people and learning about where things are working well, and the shared and unique challenges facing communities.

It is now time to work together to ensure people can access quality community health and social care services easily and smoothly. And we know from our recent consultation that these are the things people across Scotland want too.

That’s why we’re bringing people together from across Scotland to support the design of the National Care Service (NCS).

Why a National Care Service?

This is important as there’s a good chance that we’ll all need to access care services in our lifetimes. It could be that we need practical support doing everyday things following a short illness. Or need home adaptations because of a disability. Or need support to stay in our homes and communities as we get older. Regardless of our needs, we all deserve access to the right care.

But we have heard from speaking to people that how we access that care – and the care we receive – is not always a positive experience for everyone.

That’s not right.

We want everyone in Scotland – no matter who they are – to experience social care that promotes dignity and equality, and delivers quality services designed with people at their heart..

This is a huge challenge – but a vital one. That’s why we’re co-designing the NCS with people who have experience of accessing and delivering community health and social care services.

The value of co-design

When we talk about design, we’re really talking about a process to understand and solve a problem.

In the case of the National Care Service, that means understanding how we can make social care support and other services fit for purpose.

We’ll do this by working with people who are the experts in accessing and delivering social care support. This is a new way of working, for us in government too. But we have a real opportunity here to do things differently and make sure we’re focusing on people.

As we embark on the co-design phase together let’s remember that the development of the future culture starts now. There are many challenges and barriers to overcome but by approaching our individual contributions with trust, transparency and kindness we can successfully collaborate on shared outcomes.

At the end of the day, it will take a community to deliver the National Care Service. That’s why we want to partner with people who can really help us do that.

How you can get involved

We’ll be hosting a National Care Service Forum event in Perth on 3 October 2022. This event will be open to anyone who wants to learn more about:

• what the NCS is
• why it matters
• how we plan to co-design and deliver it

We welcome anyone who wants to attend, including:

• people who access social care
• carers and unpaid carers
• professionals from the social care workforce

You can register to attend the event in person. Spaces are limited, but do not worry if you can’t make it along or spaces fill up as you can also attend online.

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