Review & Redesign of Adult Services in Caithness

Stakeholder Event: Friday 7th December 2012

Event Summary

Summary

Community engagement and an acknowledgement of the need to change were two of the key aspects that came out of the above event held in Halkirk on Friday 7th December.

Forty seven people attended the Stakeholder event to discuss the priorities for taking forward a review and redesign of adult services in Caithness, with a particular focus on older adult care and support.

The day was attended by representatives from NHS Highland, The Highland Council, Voluntary Sector Organisations as well as members of local community groups with a focus on older adult care and support.

It was recognised from the outset that this event was very much the first stage in the review process, and that there were many other people and organisations that were not at the event that should be included in future discussions and engagement.

The morning saw an introduction by David Flear, Public Member on the Highland Health and Social Care Committee, who encouraged everyone to come together to agree what services are required for local people in the future.

Presentations from various members of NHS Highland then highlighted some of the key health and care needs and considerations that participants should be aware of in order to help inform active debate about what the future may look like. A common theme of the presentations was the ability to be flexible with resources (financial, staff, buildings etc) to ensure the best possible services for the future however being aware of the need to distinguish what services the population of Caithnessneed versus what services the population may want.

The presentations highlighted that the population of people aged 75 years and over in Caithness is due to increase significantly over the next 10 years with a corresponding decrease in the percentage of people of traditional working age, therefore it was recognised that changes to services were required to meet this change in demographics.

The current state of both NHS Highland’s finance and estates (buildings) were discussed to provide everyone with a full picture of the current state of play with regards to resources however it was stressed that both financial and estates strategies should follow clinical strategies and not the other way round.

Late morning and the afternoon focused on group work where participants were encouraged to identify and discuss the following topics:

-key issues that the review and redesign should focus on

-identifying current services for older adults as well as what is currently missing in the area

-Some actions that could and should be taken forward in the short, medium and longer terms

The group work generated a lot of debate, discussion and enthusiasm for how the review and redesign should be progressed and by the end of the afternoon we had some key priorities and initial next steps identified and agreed.

Key Priorities:

-A need to enhance home and community based services before reducing other services such as hospital inpatient beds

-Exploring community capacity further to identify what exists, what could be developed and how issues such as recruitment and retention of staff and volunteers fit with this

-Improve communication between all services, keeping the person and their carers in the centre of all discussions and decisions

-Dementia care

Initial Next Steps:

-Write up and communicate a summary of the Stakeholder event to all attendees and other stakeholders

-Communicate details of the review and redesign to a wider audience through a variety of channels including:

  • (Joint) ward forums
  • Local media articles

-Involve other organisations/stakeholders in the review & redesign including:

  • Chamber of Commerce
  • Trades Council
  • Dounreay Regeneration Partnership

-Undertake further engagement with GPs and hospital medical staff to ensure full medical staff involvement in the process

-Continue to hold focus groups with both service users and potential/future service users of older adult services; organise ‘fireside chats’ with people who are not able to get up and about.

-Re-establish the Community Health Improvement Forum

-Arrange a further event in a few months time to maintain momentum

The event was closed by Gill McVicar, Director of Operations for NHS Highland’s North & West Operational Unit, thanking everyone for their involvement in the event and their continued involvement and participation in ensuring a successful outcome to the review and redesign.

Alexa MacAuslan

Quality Improvement Project Manager

NHS Highland

7th January 2013

Accompanying Documents:

1. Summary of Presentations 07.12.12(Word document)

2. Summary of Group Work Discussions 07.12.12 (Word document)

3. Copies of the PowerPoint slides presented at the Stakeholder Event (zip file)