Personalisation and integration report

Personalisation and integration report

Personalisation:

This report will attempt to describe and discuss personalisation and integration approach and how it works with all the individuals. Moroever, it is also helpful to discuss how it relates to social work practice newspapers, television reports and books which will be used in writing this report.

Integration:

Integration is the most significant change to health and social care in Scotland since the creation of NHS in 1948 (Scottish Government,2014). The Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 is the legislation which outlines a framework for integration between health and social care services in Scotland (Scottish Government (2014). The Act requires local authorities and NHS Board to jointly plan an integrated health and social care service for the adults. It also gives authorities the option to include children services and criminal justice social work in integration, to reduce the barriers to communication (Burgess, 2016).

The integration of health and social care is a long-standing policy and government response to Christie Commission on Public Service Reform June 2011. The law is driven by the need to shift care from acute settings into the community. There is a requirement for partnership working between agencies to strengthen the role of health and social care professionals, with the inclusion of independent and third sector to plan and deliver services.

The law has achieved greater integration for individuals between health and social care to improve outcomes. The system creates new relationships, networks and ways of working integrated force. Communication between agencies is effective for keeping everyone informed and involved in the decision-making process. The Health services and social work professionals are required to make joint visits to service user’s homes to do inter-agency practice. It is also required by law to conduct multi-agency meetings to discuss findings and to have processes that allow decisions to be made based on a range of different views.

The health and social care directly employed 9 000 staff and 20 000 people who are employed by the organisations for delivering better health and social care in the city area of Glasgow. They are also 50 000 estimated number of unpaid careers in the city. Therefore, it is clear that a significant proportion of the population is engaged in supporting health and social care and the number is expected to increase in the future.

Social care services include supporting the service users to live their daily lives and helping them with basic personal care like washing, dressing and eating. People are living longer now, and the number of people with long-term conditions such as diabetes, including those with disabilities and complex needs such as multiple long-term conditions is increasing. The current health and social care services are unsustainable. Therefore, it is required to follow integration policies to adapt for meeting the changing needs of the people. This means to encourage older people to be more active in their own homes, shifting from hospital care to community-based care services. The government expects integration services to emphasise preventative care and reduce both levels of hospital admissions and the time patients spend in hospitals.

The Stakeholders have done well to get integration system in place, but much work remains. According to Audit Scotland (2015), despite the significant progress of integration, there are still risks which need to be addressed to successfully change the delivery of health and social care services; which may include differences in terms and conditions, principles and procedures, and budget pressures, rather than strategic needs. According to Audit Scotland (2015), Councils and NHS boards are finding it difficult to agree on budgets for difficulties and uncertainty about longer-term funding because they are not set and change comprehensive strategic plans. Therefore, the service users need to wait longer for services to be delivered. The other identified issues were complex proposed governance arrangements, which make it difficult for staff and the public to understand the care they receive. The NHS and Councils continue to face pressures of demand for tightening budgets and rising demand for services. Some councils have responded to these pressures by reducing staff and outsourcing some services to the private and voluntary sector. The councils have had difficulties in recruiting new stuff due to a need to develop a valued, skilled, and motivated workforce.

When considering the integration of health and social care and reflecting on my final placement in criminal justice, there appeared to have a lack of partnership working between the agencies and the service users, particularly the service users who were suffering from mental health issues, due to lack of resources and ongoing public spending cuts and differences in principles and procedures. The service users waited for a long time to access counseling even if they were going through a crisis. I encountered instances where social workers would try and contact other professionals without getting any reply’s or feedback. Given that, in criminal justice assessments are time specific, some court reports would be submitted to the court without needed evidence. Which I think was sometimes not fair for service users who were physically not fit to do Community Payback Orders. I recall attending a staff meeting where the social workers in criminal justice raised a concern about not getting any responses from some of the GPs to the line manager. She responded by highlighting the issues that some GPs are independent contractors, not employed by the NHS were privately owned therefore it is hard to find easy ways to get information from them such as sending email due confidentiality reasons.

Community Care (2013) highlighted some concerns that SASW agrees with the objectives of the reforms. One of its major concern was that integrating adult health and social care could destabilise a cohesive system of generic social work in Scotland, which covers adult and children services particularly families needing to access a range of services.

Also highlighted was that there would be a cultural shift in health services, to think about complex health problems other than a single health problem. In social work, our strength is that we are used to complex problems rather than single problems (Community Care, 2013).

Apart from issues and pressures mentioned above, integration of services is the best practice for improving people’s health and to meet people’s needs. Ongoing public spending cuts are the biggest barrier to integrate.

Reference List

• Glasgow City Integration Joint Board Strategic Plan 2016-2019 Available At http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=33418&p=0 [accessed on 10 November 2017].
• Health & Social care integration Available At http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Health/Policy/Health-Social-Care-Integration [Accessed on 16 April 2018]
• Health and Social Care Integration within Glasgow City Available athttps://www.glasgow.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=38322&p=0 [Accessed on 6 December 2017]
• Integration of Health and Social Care available at http://www.ccpscotland.org/hot-topics/integration-health-social-care/ [accessed on 5 November 2017].
• Life expectancy and Health in Glasgow available at http://www.understandingglasgow.com/assets/0002/8228/Life_expectancy_and_health_update_2015.jpeg [accessed on 1 December 2017].
• Scottish Government (2017) Health and Social Care Integration Available at http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/TrendHealthOutcome [accessed on 10 November 2017].
• Self -directed support: A National Strategy for Scotland Scottish Government (2010).
• Self-Directed support. available at: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Health/Support-Social-Care/Support/Self-Directed-Support [accessed on 10 November 2017].