A joint inspection of services for older people in Angus has highlighted areas of good performance and also made recommendations where further improvements are needed.
The report, published today, 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 Angus Council and NHS Tayside delivered good personal outcomes for older people and their carers across the area.
It identifies key areas of good practice but also made six recommendations for improvement.
The report follows a joint inspection carried out by specialist inspectors from the Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland.
They looked at services across the area between April and June 2014.
Across nine quality indicators, three were found to be good, five were found to be adequate and one, “policy development and plans to support improvement in service,” was graded weak. Following the inspection, the Partnership have further developed their planning processes to support service delivery and good outcomes for people in local communities.
The report notes: “The Angus Partnership performed well compared to other partnership areas on preventing avoidable admissions of older people to hospital. Its performance on ensuring the timely discharge from hospital of older people who used services who were clinically fit for discharge varied in the previous months.
“Overall, there was a sound approach to providing care and support to service users at an early stage.
“This helped to reduce the need for admission to hospital, supported discharge from hospital as well as supporting service users to remain at home.
“The enablement service was delivering good outcomes for service users, helping to maintain their independence and ability to manage without the need for continued home care support.
“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.”
Inspectors said the partnership now needed to address 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. They should also increase access to home care so that people can manage on their own, they said.
The partnership should also provide increased access to self-directed support so that people have more of a say, choice and control; they should respond to carers’ needs so that they are better able to support people who use services.
Annette Bruton, 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'.
"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: "This report clearly outlines that there are areas of good practice at The Angus Partnership.
"We noted that staff from different agencies were jointly working together to deliver good outcomes for service users and their carers at a local level.
“The Partnership needs to improve services for service users and their carers by reducing the delays in discharging people from hospital.
“Inspection is about improvement and we are confident that the six recommendations for improvement set out in this report will bring about important benefits to people living in Angus.”
Notes to Editors
The report is available here: http://www.careinspectorate.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=1266&Itemid=100181