National Care Standards Review

Ministerial foreword

Almost all of us will use a care service at some point in our lives. Everyone in Scotland should receive safe, high quality care that reflects their needs and protects their rights. The National Care Standards were created in 2002 to help people understand what to expect from care services and help services understand the standards they should deliver.

Scotland's older population is increasing which means that there will be more people with multiple long-term conditions and complex needs in the future. We are shifting from more traditional institutional models of care towards care and support at home or in a community setting. There has been a great deal of other changes in the way that care is delivered and scrutinised since the standards were introduced, and there will be further changes in the future - not least from the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014.

This means that it is now time to review the National Care Standards. This consultation sets out our proposals for developing new standards that improve the quality of care and protect vulnerable people.

We believe that it is possible to identify core elements of high quality care that should be common across public services. For this reason, the consultation seeks your views on developing quality standards for health and social care. We think this will help people using services better understand their rights and entitlements and mean that people working in health and social care work to a set of core values.

This consultation gives you the opportunity to help shape the high quality standards for services that the people of Scotland deserve. We hope as many people as possible will give us their views and comments and I urge you to get involved.