Report to the People
8th March 2004
Raising the Standard for Quality Care
It’s
the day we hope never comes – the day when your parents finally become too
frail to care for themselves, or serious illness leaves a loved one in need of
care in a hospice.
Unless
you have a heart of stone, the decision to entrust the care of a close family
member – with whom you may have shared decades of your life – to another
must be one of the hardest you’ll ever make.
What
can make a hard decision impossible, however, is a worry about the standard of
care they will receive. You can’t
be there round the clock, so how can you be sure everything is going to be OK?
In
this column almost exactly three years ago, I criticised the system which was
supposed to give you that piece of mind by ensuring that care standards were
adequate. Back then, health and
social work authorities were left to inspect their own services – giving us
fragmentation and inconsistency.
So,
in 2001, the Scottish Parliament passed the Regulation of Care Act which set up
a new “Care Commission.”
The
Commission aims to move the focus of regulation onto the people who need care
services and away from the buildings which house them. It inspects a huge range of care services – from care homes
to housing support services – to ensure that the new National Care Standards
are met.
How
this new system impacts, or might impact, on service providers has been
discussed at length. But what
exactly does it mean for the service users?
It
was exactly this question that I put to the Commission’s Chief Executive,
Jacquie Roberts and Convener, Mary Hartnoll when I met them last week.
And the answer, it transpires, is “quite a lot.”
First of all, as a user of a care service, you can take part in the
inspections. When Care Commission
Officers come to examine the service you use, they will want to hear your
thoughts on what is done well and where performance could be sharpened up.
You
can also put your comments and suggestions directly to the Commission and, if
you are unhappy at the standard of service you are receiving, you can make a
complaint which they will investigate.
More information on
how to make your voice heard is online at the Care Commission’s website – www.carecommission.com.
You can also make a complaint by writing to their Central West regional
office at 4th Floor, 1 Smithhills Street, Paisley PA1 1EB, or by calling 0141
843 4230.
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