With Respect to Old Age: Caring for Older People in Scotland Conference

A one day conference, Monday 17th November 2008
Sheraton Grand Hotel, Edinburgh

For booking details and other information, please visit the Holyrood Conferences website.

“Planning for and funding personal and nursing care is only one element of a much wider picture...The adequate provision of personal and nursing care is now part of the way we want to live...It is rather like climbing a Scottish mountain. Having reached the vista provided by one horizon we realise that a much larger vista lies before us for which we must prepare.”
Lord Sutherland, Independent Review of Free Personal and Nursing Care in Scotland, April 2008

The recent publication of Lord Sutherland’s recommendations for securing the future of free personal care has once again focused minds on how we pay for and deliver care for older people in Scotland. Any question mark over the continuation of free personal care has been removed by Sutherland’s strong endorsement of the policy, but other questions remain: how can we ensure adequate funding will continue to be available in the long term, and can we achieve nation-wide consistency of interpretation and remove postcode-based application of policy?

Furthermore, as the Sutherland report made clear, free personal care is only one part of the picture when it comes to funding, planning and delivering care as the numbers of older people continue to rise. How should the provision of both residential and home-based care evolve to meet the different needs and expectations of current and future generations of service-users? What kinds of services have to be developed to ensure that the growing numbers of people who will suffer from dementia are properly served? What should care providers in all sectors – public, voluntary and independent – do to ensure that they are really listening to what older people and carers want, and that the delivery of care is based on genuine partnership with them? Are older people being given adequate opportunity and support to choose services which help them to lead their lives as they wish to?

This conference will explore these and other key issues and enable attendees to make their contribution to the crucial debate about how Scotland should care for our older people, now and in the future.

Keynote Speakers:
Shona Robison MSP, Minister for Public Health, Scottish Government
Christopher Manthorp, Director for Older People's Services, EPIC Trust and columnist, The Guardian
Jacquie Roberts, Chief Executive, The Care Commission
Cllr Ronnie McColl, Cosla Health and Social Care Spokesperson
Professor David Bell, Professor of Economics, University of Stirling

This conference is aimed at:
* Service-users and carers;
* national and local older people’s advocacy, campaigning and membership organisations;
* carers’ groups;
* local authority and NHS older people’s service planners, managers and staff;
* local authority elected members;
* third sector service providers;
* independent sector providers;
* professional bodies and Royal Colleges;
* welfare rights lawyers and advisers;
* academics, policy-makers and researchers

For booking details and other information, please visit the Holyrood Conferences website.