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2 BACKGROUND
Audit Scotland Report
6. Following a major review of the management of community equipment and adaptations, Audit Scotland published the report 'Adapting to the Future: Management of Community Care Equipment and Adaptations' (2004) 1. The report highlighted a need for local authorities and the NHS to improve the planning, organisation and delivery of equipment and adaptation services to support people living in their own homes.
7. The report also made a number of key recommendations for the Scottish Government, for local authorities and for NHS Boards. The report recommended that the Scottish Government should:
8. "Update national guidance on roles and responsibilities in relation to community equipment and adaptations to reflect new ways of working promoted by the Joint Future Agenda; local government reorganisation; and developments in technology."
9. Full details of the report's main findings and recommendations can be found in appendix A.
Equipped for Inclusion
10. Following a recommendation in ' Community Care: A Joint Future'2 (2000) the Strategy Forum: Equipment and Adaptations was established to achieve a "much needed sense of direction for equipment and adaptation services". The main findings of the Strategy Forum were published in the report Equipped for Inclusion3 in June 2003.
11. Four key areas were identified in the report:
a) Equipment and adaptations as part of every day life: the promotion of social justice through the mainstreaming of equipment and adaptations.
b) Extending and sharing knowledge: by improving the information available and how it is provided, supported by advice and demonstration.
c) A joint future: equipment and adaptations integrated with one another, integrated within community care, and across care groups through joint resourcing and joint service management, single shared assessment and care management.
d) Assuring quality and innovation: by auditing and improving service standards, a knowledge base evidencing and evaluating the impact on people's lives and on other care services, and by encouraging and supporting innovation.
Community Care: A Joint Future
12. The Community Care: Joint Future Report made a number of key recommendations. The report recommended that:
- To modernise and improve equipment and adaptation services, the Scottish Executive should establish a strategic overview, and set out a programme of change that will require agencies locally to integrate equipment and adaptation services with the rest of community care services, and put in place a number of specific measures that will result in a better-focused and more effective service for the user.
- To target occupational therapy services more effectively, agencies need to modernise equipment and adaptation services, and to remove duplication between hospital and community based occupational therapy services wherever practical. For community care services that reorganisation needs to begin as soon as possible, followed by the rest of health and social care within the context of the wider agenda for joined up health, housing and social care services.
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