The planning of health and social care services across East Renfrewshire is improving, inspectors have said.

A joint inspection which focused on the strategic planning of health and social care services in the East Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership was carried out by a team of inspectors from Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the Care Inspectorate between April and June 2019.

In a report published today inspectors evaluated three quality indicators as ‘good’. These were the partnership’s performance; strategic planning and commissioning; and leadership and direction.
They noted: “There was clear evidence that the partnership was improving its health and social services for adults.

“The partnership’s default approach for all its activities was integrated working. It had made commendable progress with technology-enabled care, whereby people were supported by communication technology to keep well and maintain their independence.

“It worked positively with its third sector partners to develop some innovative person-centred services that used community assets to deliver improved health and wellbeing outcomes for people who used services and unpaid carers. The partnership needed to do more to engage productively with the independent sector.”

The report identifies five areas for further development including planning; meaningfully involving stakeholders; and ensuring effective operational leadership and management capacity to fully implement strategies and plans.

Peter Macleod, Chief Executive of the Care Inspectorate, said: “We found that from a strategic perspective the partnership had taken decisive improvement actions.

“The partnership needs to make progress implementing its improvement plan for its care at home service. This will depend on the effectiveness of the operational management of this service.

“The partnership showed capacity for continuous improvement with its record of sound progress with the integration of health and social care services, supported by an integrated management structure and co-located teams of health and social care staff.”

Robbie Pearson, Chief Executive of Healthcare Improvement Scotland, said: “Our joint inspection found that there was clear evidence that the partnership was improving its health and social care services for adults. We saw a culture of collaborative leadership, sound governance and a strong commitment to integration. Moreover, the partnership’s performance in post-diagnostic support for patients with dementia was found to be positive.

“Care at home is a critical service that delivers vital personal care to many older people and other individuals. This issue constitutes a considerable risk for the partnership and progress needs to be made to implement its improvement plan.”

You can download the report here.