Inspectors identify areas of improvement for elderly services in Argyll

A joint inspection of services for older people in Argyll and Bute has highlighted areas of good performance and also made recommendations where further improvements are needed.

The report, published yesterday, follows a joint inspection by the Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland which looked at how well the health and social work services partnership between Argyll and Bute Council and NHS Highland delivered good personal outcomes for older people and their carers across the area.

It identifies key areas of good practice but also made eleven recommendations for improvement.

Across nine quality indicators, two were found to be good. These were “key performance outcomes” and “impact on the community”. Seven were found to be adequate.

The report notes: “The Argyll and Bute Partnership performed relatively well compared to national trends on preventing avoidable admissions of older people to hospital. Its performance on ensuring the timely discharge from hospital of older people who were medically fit for discharge varied. The balance between hospital and community care was good, with most older people supported at home, compared to the proportion supported in care homes.

“There was a positive preventative approach to providing care and support to service users. This helped to reduce the need for admission to hospital, supported discharge from hospital as well as supporting service users to remain at home. Reablement, respite and care at home services were having, in the main, a positive impact in helping older people maximise their quality of life.

“While home care services delivered good outcomes for service users, we found there were issues with home care capacity. This had an adverse impact on some service users and their carers.”

However inspectors recognised positive trends and added: “The partnership now need to further improve the balance of care to increase the number of people supported at home rather than in a care home through reducing the time that some service users spent in hospital when they were ready to go home.

“The partnership should also improve its approach to reablement so that more older people could be supported to remain living independently at home.

“It should also undertake further work with the carers’ centres to improve how information about carers’ needs are shared between carers’ centres and social work staff so that carers have better access to services for themselves and those for whom they care.

Karen Reid, the Care Inspectorate’s Chief Executive, said: “By working with our partners we can ensure we build up an accurate picture of how services are performing.

“We want to answer the key question ‘how well are these services improving the lives of older people and their carers. Where there is room for improvement we do not hesitate to report on this and expect partnerships take the necessary action so that everyone in Scotland can access services which meet their needs and respect their rights.”

Robbie Pearson, Director of Scrutiny and Assurance for Healthcare Improvement Scotland, said: “Our joint inspection health and social work services for older people in Argyll and Bute involved meeting over 100 older people and their carers, and around 400 staff from health and social work services, to find out how well health and social work services worked together to deliver services to older people. We also wanted to find out how well health and social work services were prepared for the coming legislative changes designed to integrate health and social work services.

“We found that the balance between hospital and community care was good, with most older people supported at home, compared to the proportion supported in care homes. The recommendations made in the report will help the Argyll and Bute Partnership further improvements to the care they provide.”

Inspectors from the Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland looked at services across the area between April and June 2015.

The report is available here: http://cinsp.in/1RkbRTv