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16Dec 2011
Health and Social Care Plans Must Go Further, Say Charities
Older people’s groups said the proposals are just a starting point to ensuring personalisation of services that give Scots power and control over their care and ensure Scotland can afford to look after its ageing population.
They called on the government to ensure funds are shifted from the NHS to preventative community services that support older people, such as Meals on Wheels, befriending services and lunch clubs.
Community services are essential to prevent older Scots ending up in long-term, expensive hospital care, third sector groups said.
Age Scotland urged the government to ensure that older people are fully consulted and the bill goes as far as possible to support their needs.
“Different masters, separate budgets, and parallel structures and cultures have created a turf war between health and social care,” said Age Scotland chief executive David Manion.
“Yet what older people desire and require is to experience health and social care as a single service that gives them the care they want when they want it.
“To ensure that any new system truly puts the service user, the older person, first, there must be a significant shift in the resources available to supporting older people in the community. The key test of the government’s integration plans will be delivering a step-change in the level of community-based services that older people need.”
The new legislation will not include the creation of a new body that merges NHS and local authority social care services, Sturgeon announced early this week.
Instead the legislation will reform Community Health Partnerships, making them the joint responsibility of the NHS and councils and accountable to the government.
The proposals do include shifting funds from institutional care to community services, but it is not clear yet how far this will go.
According to Alzheimer’s Scotland, the number of Scots living with dementia is set to double in the next twenty years.
Henry Simmons, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Scotland, said: “We welcome this measured drive towards integration; however, it is only one step in the much needed transformation of our health and social care system – we must now use this opportunity as a catalyst to deliver personalisation.
“The next step must be to ensure that choice, power and control of individual support and funding is transferred to the many individuals and families that want to direct their own support. We want to see a personalised approach to care and support for people with dementia, from the point of diagnosis through to palliative and end of life care.”
The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) also urged the government to ensure that the new bill helps to focus health and social care funding on preventative community services, many of which are run by third sector groups.
Martin Sime, SCVO chief executive, said: “The critical question is whether these reforms will enable a sharper focus on prevention, supporting interventions which help to sustain people in their homes without recourse to expensive hospital or residential care.
“The involvement of the third sector at all levels – from strategic commissioning through to delivery – is a crucial component in reforming health and care systems and services but the real challenge is to meet the changing demography in ways which build individual and community resilience.”
The new CHPs will be responsible for delivering new nationally agreed outcomes in partnership with the third sector and private sector, according to the government.
Sturgeon said: “Our reforms will deliver a system that is effectively integrated, leading to better outcomes for older people and better use of resources.
“We will now work with partners in the NHS, local government, the third and independent sectors and professional bodies to develop detailed consultation material for public discussion and scrutiny.”
Commenting is now closed.