NATIONAL CARE STANDARDS COMMITTEE MEETING
Conference Room 2, Victoria Quay, Edinburgh, Monday 28 February 2005
Note of the Meeting
Present: Adam Rennie (Chair), Marjory Barquist (Secretary), Colin Anderson, Lorraine Briggs, Margaret Davidson, Leigh Edwardson, Janet Law, Roy Paterson, Janis Pelosi, Jacquie Roberts, Frances Smith, Raymond Taylor, Ruth Whatling, David Whiteoak
1. Welcome & Introduction
1.1 Adam Rennie welcomed everyone to the fourteenth meeting of the NCSC.
1.2 Adam introduced Ruth Whatling from Scottish Executive Research Unit and Raymond Taylor from the SSSC who were attending the meeting to introduce Paper 1 and Paper 2 respectively.
2. Apologies
2.1 Apologies were received from Janie Allen, Irene Audain, Pat Dawson, Jacqueline Hughes, Robert Houtman, Mary McCann and Jim McDonald.
3. Note of the Last Meeting & Matters Arising
3.1 The note of the last meeting was agreed.
3.2 There were three matters arising from the last meeting.
Update to the standards for adult care homes and early education and childcare.
The rewording of the updates to these standards was completed in December 2004, having been agreed by the NCSC. The updates would be included in future reprints of the standards.
Dissemination of the updates to service providers.
Val Cox was taking this forward for early years' services and the Care Standards & Sponsorship branch would be advising adult care home providers. This would be completed in the next few weeks.
Criteria for urgent revisions.
The Care Standards & Sponsorship branch had not had an opportunity to progress this since the Committee's last meeting but would be doing so in the near future.
4. Updates
Resignation of Pek Yeong Berry
4.1 Suzanne Munday from the Minority Ethnic Older People's Partnership had agreed to join the NCSC as the new ethnic minorities' representative following Pek Yeong Berry's resignation in November 2004. Suzanne would be attending the next meeting in April.
Revision to the standards for Independent Hospitals and Hospice Care
4.2 Adam recalled that revised wording for the standards for Independent Hospitals and Hospice Care had been agreed at the last NCSC meeting in December 2004. As the original wording of this standard had been agreed with NHS QIS, the Executive had sent the new wording to NHS QIS for comment.
4.3 In response David Steel, NHS QIS, had expressed concern about the use of 'meets' as NHS hospitals are not required to meet the relevant NHS QIS standards The issue had therefore been brought back to the Committee for further discussion.
4.4 Frances Smith suggested the standard read 'reviewed against the standards'. Roy Paterson expressed concern with this suggestion as he felt that users would not understand what was meant by the term 'reviewed against'.
4.5 Jacquie Roberts suggested that the wording could reflect the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act and use the phrase 'takes account of' instead of 'meets'. The Committee agreed that this would be sensible approach and suggested that the standard could read:
"You know the care and treatment you receive from the hospital takes account of all relevant NHS Quality Improvement Scotland standards."
4.6 Jacquie also suggested that a footnote could be added to explain the policy intent of this standard. The footnote would make it clear that the expectation is that providers should be taking into account all the standards and following best practice guidelines.
4.7 It was agreed that the Sponsorship branch would look at this further and a revised form of words would be sent to NCSC members for comment. The agreed revision would then be passed to David Steel.
5. Report of the Omnibus Survey on Awareness of the National Care Standards - Paper 1
5.1 Paper 1 was a report of the Omnibus Survey on awareness of the NCS conducted by 'MRUK Research' in November 2004. Ruth Whatling provided background to the survey and an overview of the results.
5.2 A total of 1011 interviews were conducted door to door between 1 and 7 November 2004. Interviews were conducted during the day and in the evenings, both on weekdays and at weekends, to ensure that those interviewed were a representative sample of the population in terms of age, gender and socio-economic grouping.
5.3 Jacquie Roberts asked what was meant by the term 'when prompted' in the context of the report. Ruth explained that this term was used when the subject of the survey, in this case the National Care Standards, appeared in the question being asked.
5.4 Several members asked if the breakdown of the socio-economic groups could be clarified. Ruth agreed to pass this information to the Secretariat for circulation to Committee members.
5.5 Ruth outlined the main findings of the survey. Before doing so, Ruth highlighted that some of the results should be interpreted with caution given the small sample sizes involved. The main findings were:
The majority of respondents (93%) were not involved in care services in any way.
Over 1 in 6 respondents (15%) were aware of the national care standards.
Of those respondents who were aware of the national care standards, 36% were aware of the standards booklets.
5.6 The Sponsor branch planned to repeat the Omnibus Survey to gauge awareness of the standards following any efforts to raise awareness.
6. Raising awareness of the National Care Standards.
6.1 The Committee expressed concern that the majority of respondents were not aware of the national care standards. There was a lengthy discussion about what could be done to raise awareness of the standards.
6.2 Marjory assured the Committee that the Scottish Executive shared the Committee's concerns about the results of the Omnibus survey and provided an update on the Executive's plans to raise awareness of the standards.
6.3 The Sponsor branch had put in a bid for a share of Scottish Executive funding being made available for marketing. What could be done to raise awareness of the standards would be dependent on whether the funding bid was successful. Either way, the Scottish Executive would be working with the Care Commission to raise awareness of both the National Care Standards and the Care Commission. Linda Gregson, head of the Care Standards and Sponsorship Branch, and Marjory were planning to meet Sandra Burke, the Care Commission's Communications Manager, in the near future to discuss efforts to raise awareness.
6.4 A general discussion followed about how awareness of the standards could be raised. Members suggested the Health Committee and the Scottish Consumers Council as possible routes through which awareness of the standards could be raised.
6.5 Colin Anderson suggested introducing different formats of the standards to raise awareness amongst particular user groups - for example, producing a leaflet listing the titles of all the relevant standards for users with learning disabilities. The same could also be done for other user groups. Committee members supported this suggestion and agreed that it should be given further consideration.
6.6 Jacquie Roberts suggested introducing a national care standards champion in the Scottish Executive Press Office to raise awareness of the standards. Adam Rennie agreed that it was a worthwhile suggestion; however, given the demands on Press Health, he did not think it would be feasible. He assured the Committee that the Scottish Executive continued to promote the standards at every available opportunity.
6.7 Jacquie highlighted that there were problems obtaining copies of the standards for early education and childcare from Blackwell's Bookshop. Marjory informed the Committee that the Executive were aware of the backlog of orders for some sets of the standards, particularly early education and childcare and care homes for older people. They were currently taking forward a programme of reprints with Astron which should be available by the end of March 2005 and would fulfil all the outstanding orders.
7. Urgent change proposal for National Care Standards for Care Homes for Children and Young People - Paper 2
7.1 Raymond Taylor from the SSSC introduced Paper 2 which outlined a proposed change, and a revision, to the standards for Care Homes for Children and Young People. Adam asked the Committee to consider whether:
i) to recommend the change to Ministers;
ii) the change was urgent; and
iii) consultation would be required.
7.2 The discussion initially focussed on the revision aspect of the proposal. The Committee agreed the wording of the proposed revision.
7.3 Some confusion then arose regarding the proposed change, which represents the addition of a new standard as outlined below:
'You know that at least 50% of the staff directly caring for you are either trained to at least SVQ2 level or equivalent or are working towards achieving the relevant qualification required for registration with the SSSC.'
The confusion related to the 50% requirement and to the level of qualification required.
7.4 After discussion, Adam apologised to Committee members about the confusion and advised that the position with regard to these two points would need to be clarified before the proposal went any further. It was agreed that the Sponsor branch would seek to clarify the proposed changes with the SSSC and relevant policy colleagues. The paper would come back to the Committee at the next meeting in April as they had been unable to address it fully.
8. Reference to best practice guidelines in the National Care Standards - Paper 3
8.1 Lorraine Briggs introduced Paper 3. Following a review of all 21 sets of published standards, it was found that five do not contain a general reference to current best practice guidance. With this in mind, the Committee was invited to decide whether, in principle, a standard statement referring to all care being provided by the service being in line with current best practice guidance should be added to any existing standards which do not currently contain such a statement.
8.2 Following discussion, the Committee agreed that a general reference to current best practice guidance should be included in all sets of standards. The Committee did not consider the revision to be urgent and, therefore, agreed that it could be done as part of a general review of the standards.
8.3 Members highlighted that various people and organisations would need to be informed of any revision to the standards. Adam agreed that this would be necessary and that the Executive would consider how best to do this nearer the time.
9. AOB
9.1 There was no other Committee business.
10. Date of Next Meeting
10.1 The next meeting was scheduled for Monday 25 April 2005 in Conference Room 2 at Victoria Quay.