by Allan Bowman
The various social care funding options have this week been detailed by Andy Burnham and we now need a real public consultation before the Green Paper becomes a White Paper. However, even before 'Shaping the Future of Care Together' was published, we said publicly that, although funding is important, that is only half of the equation. The other half is the quality of care available and the type of support that people receive. That's because it could be dangerous to assume that once the funding supply is worked out, then all the services will be 'on tap' and easy to find.
For those of us working in social care, the watch-words need to be 'innovation' and 'improvement' so that a reasonable price is paid for quality care and support. It also affects services such as housing, advocacy, transport, health, leisure, and financial services. These areas need to be fitted around people's lives so that their care and complete wellbeing is addressed. It's vital that local government hears this message as they provide or commission those services.
What's good for Community Care readers is that you probably know a lot about personalisation from getting the magazine. If not, we have a Rough Guide to Personalisation and briefings for different professionals, available on our website. There are plenty of good examples of innovation out there which use personalisation, like the care home that, at night, laid out breakfast for one resident with dementia, because he gets up every morning at 3.30am. It turns out he used to be a milkman and staff understand what is important in his routine.
In the above example, if personalisation had not been used, then extra costs would have been generated to attempt to solve the problem. One of the government's three funding proposals will be adopted for the years to come; but people will still have expectations, aspirations and a need for security. People need and want independence, control and well-being.
We realise that the financial situation is difficult and SCIE's current mission is to encourage innovation and improvement so that existing services provide the best possible value-for-money. We offer a good, robust body of evidence about what works, which is grounded in what people who use services and their carers say. But in some instances evidence is limited, so we want to build a comprehensive, reliable evidence-base to support ongoing improvement. It's in everyone's interest to offer high quality and safe care and support.
Allan Bowman is chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence.
What's good for Community Care readers is that you probably know a lot about personalisation from getting the magazine. If not, we have a Rough Guide to Personalisation and briefings for different professionals, available on our website. There are plenty of good examples of innovation out there which use personalisation, like the care home that, at night, laid out breakfast for one resident with dementia, because he gets up every morning at 3.30am. It turns out he used to be a milkman and staff understand what is important in his routine.
In the above example, if personalisation had not been used, then extra costs would have been generated to attempt to solve the problem. One of the government's three funding proposals will be adopted for the years to come; but people will still have expectations, aspirations and a need for security. People need and want independence, control and well-being.
We realise that the financial situation is difficult and SCIE's current mission is to encourage innovation and improvement so that existing services provide the best possible value-for-money. We offer a good, robust body of evidence about what works, which is grounded in what people who use services and their carers say. But in some instances evidence is limited, so we want to build a comprehensive, reliable evidence-base to support ongoing improvement. It's in everyone's interest to offer high quality and safe care and support.
Allan Bowman is chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence.
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