INDEPENDENT FUNDING REVIEW OF FREE PERSONAL & NURSING CARE: MINUTES OF MEETING HELD IN ST ANDREW'S HOUSE, EDINBURGH, AT 10.00AM, ON FRIDAY, 14 MARCH 2008
Present: Lord Sutherland (Chairman)
Anne Jarvie
Mary Marshall
Jim Dickie
Professor David Bell
Rory Mair
Rhona Dubery (Secretary)
In Attendance: Neil Rennick, Scottish Government, Community Care Division
Shaun Eales, Scottish Government, Community Care Division
Jenny Stevenson, Scottish Government, Community Care Division
Introductory Remarks
1. Lord Sutherland welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked Rhona for all her work on pulling together the draft report. He said that although the Group's remit was to report to Ministers by the end of the month but the difficulties with expenditure data had had an impact on the timetable and he thought that a little more time was needed to finalise the findings. He proposed that publication be delayed a few weeks and that he should speak to the Cabinet Secretary about this. The Review Group agreed.
Minutes of Meeting held on 29 February 2008
2. The minutes of the eight meeting held on Friday, 28 February 2008 (IFR-FPNC (08)3rd Minutes) would be circulated and clearance sought electronically.
Report: Consideration of first draft report and key recommendations
3. Lord Sutherland thanked Rhona for preparing and circulating the first full draft of the Group's report. He also thanked Rory for the written comments he had prepared. He suggested that the group work through the report and that Rory feed in as and when appropriate from his written remarks. Although this was a first full draft, it would be important to pick up points on phrasing, emphasis etc for Rhona to pick-up on in the next version. He had been giving further thought to his foreword and the big messages contained therein and would re-visit it to ensure that it set the tone for the rest of the report, and that the key messages could be elicited easily.
4. Rhona said that although the report was complete structurally, it was still very much a first draft and as such it still required a good deal of editing down to remove any repetition and to make greater use of the comprehensive evidence base. She would seek to do more work on that over the next week or so, taking on board the Group's comments from that day's meeting.
5. In discussion of the draft a number of detailed drafting points were agreed by the Review Group, in addition the following points were made:
(a) The Group's conclusions on: "entitlement", funding shortfall and Attendance Allowance should be given greater prominence. Further information was awaited to allow the Group to come to a firm and final view on the funding shortfall;
(b) Further consideration should be given to the ordering of recommendations and to whether more ancillary findings should be included alongside key, headline findings;
(c) The balance struck between what was said about the affect of implementation issues against difficulties caused by interpretation (of the legislation) should be re-visited, It was encouraging that Ministers had indicated they were willing in principle to look to re-visit the legislation regarding food preparation if necessary at some point and it may be that the best time for that would be at the 5 year point when the Group was recommending they review and re-model demand and costs (in the light of the latest demographics and other factors) in any case;
(d) Care should be taken to keep the difficulties which had affected the policy in proportion. All the evidence clearly showed that the vast majority of people assessed as in need of services got those services and received them within a reasonable time;
(e) The move to outcomes based funding of local government services was bound to bring a degree of uncertainty into the system for all services and it was important to take this opportunity to ensure that securing better outcomes for older people was given enough prominence and featured in National Outcomes Indicators and Single Outcome Agreements; and
(f) In clarifying that FPNC is an "entitlement" for those assessed as requiring care and seeking to promote the Single Shared Assessment approach care should be taken to recognise the professional judgement and flexibility that was a crucial aspect in the process. The need to multi-disciplinary and timely care planning should be brought out more, as should the role and contribution of carers.
6. The Review Group also agreed that Rhona should re-work the draft in the light of comments offered and circulate it to the Group for further comments by Friday, 28 March. Thereafter, a decision would be made as to whether the Group wished to have a further and final meeting or whether final editing could be done electronically.
Presentation and Publication of the Final Report
7. Rhona said that she would re-visit the print and publication plans in the light of the Group's decision to delay publication by a few weeks. She would circulate a note on options to the Group along with the re-worked draft report before the end of the month.
Independent Funding Review of Free Personal & Nursing Care
Secretariat
March 2008