Scottish Parliament Update September 2006

PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS

Review of free personal care
Bruce McFee (SNP – West of Scotland) asked the Executive when it expects its review into free personal care to be completed.
Lewis Macdonald - the first phase of this work was published on 20 June 2006 and the findings are available on the
Scottish Executive Website
The second phase of this work is underway and its findings will be published early next year.

PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES

Care Inquiry Report Debate – 20 September
The Care Inquiry Report is the findings of the Health Committee’s post legislative scrutiny of the Community Care and Health (Scotland) Act 2002 and the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001. The report focused on three key elements of the legislation: free personal care for the elderly; the regulation of care services; and the take-up of direct payments.

Main issues raised during the debate were:

Free Personal Care

• The widespread support for the principle of free personal care and its benefits in relation to helping people to be cared for at home and aiding hospital discharge.
• The dispute between local authorities and the Scottish Executive over whether the policy is adequately funded.
• Local authorities operation of waiting lists for free personal care.
• Local authorities adopting different practices in charging for meal preparation.
• The level of payment has not been increased since the implementation of the policy in 2002, resulting in its value decreasing annually.
• Free personal care payments are made only from the date on which the assessment of need was undertaken, resulting in the delay of assessment to save costs to the local authority.

Regulation of Care Services

• Elderly care services are charged the full cost of regulation by the Care Commission, whereas child care services are subsidised.
• Poor communication between local authorities and the Care Commission.

Direct payments

• Increase in the number of people who are in receipt of direct payments from 207 in 2001 to 1,438 in 2005. However, Scotland is lagging far behind England and Wales in the number of people who receive direct payments.
• More required to promote the availability of direct payments.
• The level of direct payments in an area is dependent on how enthusiastic the local authority is about the policy.

The Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care, Lewis Macdonald, made the following points in responding to the matters raised during the debate:

• The Scottish Executive began a major evaluation of policy last year, which is expected to be completed this year and published early 2007.
• The Scottish Executive are considering the level of payments for personal and nursing care for residents in care homes and have not yet reached a conclusion. Early indications suggest that the initial work that was done by Sutherland and the Care Development Group might have overestimated the cost of providing personal care but underestimated the cost of nursing care.
• The issue of charges for meal preparation will be addressed in the review.
• The Scottish Executive views the charging of fees for regulation as a legitimate business cost. The decision to subsidise child services is based on the need to encourage supply in the market.
• The Scottish Executive will be consulting on reducing the frequency of Care Commission inspections for a number of services in the near future.

Response to the Health Committee Care Inquiry Report
The Executive published its response to the Health Committee’s Care Inquiry Report at the end of August. They have reserved judgement on many of the reports recommendations until completion of its own review scheduled for the beginning of 2007.
The Executives response is available on the
Scottish Executives Website