ALLIANCE response to the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill

The ALLIANCE has responded to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee's call for views on the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill.

The Scottish Parliament’s Health, Social Care and Sport Committee  invited views on the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill (this link will take you away from our website). The Scottish Government want to create a National Care Service that will improve people’s experiences of social care.

The ALLIANCE previously responded to the Scottish Government’s initial consultation before the legislation was published. Following extensive consultation with members, and drawing on a wider body of research and evidence on people’s experiences accessing and delivering social care and support, we have now submitted a response to the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill.

The National Care Service offers an opportunity to improve people’s experiences of community health and social care – if implemented in a way that responds to the concerns and experiences of people accessing services, the workforce, and the recommendations in the Independent Review of Adult Social Care. Any programme of improvement needs to consider the support and resources required to allow this to happen. Furthermore, improvement activity overseen by the National Care Service must start with those areas of improvement which will realise the principles and values of choice, control, and human rights. It is also essential that the development of the National Care Service is attentive to the importance of integration across systems and does not unintentionally reduce integration across health and social care services.

ALLIANCE recommendations for the revised Bill include:

• Integrate equality and human rights based approaches across all parts of the social care system.
• Include explicit reference in primary legislation to people’s right to independent living and inclusion in the community.
• Provide stronger commitments to human rights and co-production – for example ensuring voting rights on and membership of care boards for people with lived experience.
• Commit to collecting and publishing intersectional data and analysis, including people’s experiences of care, and use that data within care plans.
• Ensure that the third and independent sectors, and the role of volunteers, are explicitly acknowledged and treated as key and equal partners throughout the legislation, and named in both the explanatory policy memoranda and regulation.
• Provide clearer definitions of ethical commissioning, fair work, and independent advocacy, to aid in consistent implementation.
• Strengthen the section on care records, to ensure a “digital choice” approach, citizen control of and access to records, and appropriate access for providers and workers from the third and independent sector.
• Ensure clear accountability measures throughout the Bill, with effective redress and action available if systems fail.

We have an opportunity to embed citizen involvement, human rights and co-production in re-designing services. We need to have support services that are readily available when a person needs to access them, enshrine people’s right to independent living, and become much more proactive in providing preventative and early intervention services. To see that progress and ambition realised, it is imperative that the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill is fit for purpose.

Our full response is available at the link below.

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