A joint inspection of services for older people in Fife has highlighted areas of good performance and made recommendations where further improvements can be made.
The report, published today, follows a joint inspection led by the Care Inspectorate, which looked at how well the health and social work services partnership between Fife Council and NHS Fife delivered good personal outcomes for older people and their carers across the area.
It identifies key areas of good practice but also made ten recommendations for improvement, including that “as a matter of urgency, the Fife Partnership should put measures in place to ensure that older people in Fife are discharged home or to a homely setting when they are ready for discharge.”
The report follows a joint inspection carried out by teams of inspectors from the Care Inspectorate, Education Scotland, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland.
They looked at services across the area between April and June 2014.
Across nine quality indicators, two were found to be good, six were found to be adequate and one, “policy development and plans to support improvement in service”, was graded weak.
The report notes: “The Fife Partnership delivered positive outcomes for some older people and their carers and was able to provide a range of services to prevent avoidable admissions to hospital.
“For example, the Fife Partnership hospital at home project was supporting older people to stay at home or in a homely setting rather than being admitted to hospital for short-term medical intervention.
“However, the Fife Partnership’s performance on ensuring timely discharge from hospital for older people who were medically fit for discharge was more mixed.”
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 of older people?’
"Where there is room for improvement we do not hesitate to report on this and expect partnerships to take the necessary action so that everyone in Scotland can access services which meet their needs and respect their rights."
You can read the report here