The Health and Social Care Partnership in Perth & Kinross continues to develop integrated health and social care services, but there are weaknesses in their use of performance information and leadership of strategic planning and commissioning, inspectors have said.

An inspection team from the Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland noted that the Perth and Kinross Health and Social Care Partnership had a clear vision and aims and has made significant progress to improve performance in unscheduled care and reducing delayed discharges from hospital.

Moreover, performance information had been used to support improvement in these areas. The inspectors also found that positive progress had been made in the development of localities where staff worked closely together to provide services collaboratively. Financial planning had also improved.

While acknowledging that the Partnership had successfully implemented its plans in some key areas, there was a lack of leadership and strategic oversight which resulted in poor planning, direction and monitoring of services. The inspectors identified a lack of performance reporting structures. This limited the Partnership’s ability to measure progress against wider strategic priorities or the aims of the strategic commissioning plan.

The Partnership has new leaders in post who express commitment to the integration agenda and have already taken steps that reflect this commitment. This is evident in the continued building of better relationships and in improved financial planning. The Partnership must sustain this as it will provide a positive foundation for improvement in the future.

The Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland have made recommendations for improvement and will support and monitor the Partnership progress in the development and implementation of its strategies and plans for integration.

Speaking of the report, Robbie Pearson, Chief Executive of Healthcare Improvement Scotland, said: “Inspectors found that the Partnership had not made progress against all of its strategic priorities between 2016 and 2019. Workforce planning and complex care were not given sufficient attention and the Partnership had not been realistic about its capacity to implement its plans.

"They noted the Partnership had taken steps to review and improve its strategic planning and commissioning processes. Key members of the executive and senior management teams had changed. There was an increased commitment to supporting integrated working and the integration agenda from Perth and Kinross Council and NHS Tayside as a result.”

Peter Macleod, Chief Executive, Chief Executive of the Care Inspectorate, said: “This Partnership has been slow to progress integration of health and social care. Structures and processes had not been developed or redesigned to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. A new management team has expressed its commitment to integration. It will be important for partners to build on this commitment to progress this very challenging agenda.”

The report is available here