Social Care Inquiry

Experiences of social care in Scotland

We are seeking views from people with lived experience of receiving adult social care or being a carer for someone receiving care. We would like to hear:

1. Your story and experience of social care in Scotland
2. What you would change about your experience of social care?

The future delivery of social care in Scotland

We are keen to receive responses to the following questions:

1. How should the public be involved in planning their own and their community’s social care services?
2. How should integration authorities commission and procure social care to ensure it is person-centred?
3. Looking ahead, what are the essential elements in an ideal model of social care (e.g. workforce, technology, housing etc.)?
4. What needs to happen to ensure the equitable provision of social care across the country?

The Scottish Government has been working with Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), people with lived experience, unpaid carers and other stakeholders to develop a national programme to support reform of adult social care.

The national programme, launched in June 2019, is intended to:

• Support integration authorities, the wider sector, and communities in planning and taking forward changes.
• Advise Scottish Ministers if national changes or interventions are required.
• Raise awareness of the role of social care support in Scotland and its social and economic value.

The programme’s priorities come from what people who use social care support, and people who work across the system have said must be included in the process so that change can happen. These are:

• Have a shared agreement on the purpose of social care support. Focus this on human rights and a process that is person-led.
• Focus on social care support that fits around a person, how they want to live their life, and what is important to them. This includes living independently, and the ability to move to a different area of Scotland if they want or need to, without there being an impact on their continuity of care.
• Focus on the same high quality of experiences and the same expectations about support across Scotland.
• Change attitudes towards social care support, so that it is seen as an investment in Scotland’s people, society and economy.
• Value the people who work in social work and social care support.
• Include and co-produce with people who use social care support, unpaid carers, and wider communities. Make local and national co-production work better.
• Look at investment in social care support, and how it is funded and paid for in the future.
• Check and record what is working well and what is not. Learn from data and experiences.

More information is available on the Scottish Government website - Reforming adult social care support.