Care Home Data Review: workshop summary

This report provides a summary of the discussion from the Care Home Data Review Workshop, held online on 14 March 2023. The aim of the workshop was to discuss the experiences of providers and users of care home data, looking across all national care home data collections.

The workshop

The majority of the workshop consisted of interactive sessions intended to capture data uses, issues, potential improvements and prioritisation.  The topics covered in these sessions were:

Workshop participants

The workshop had over 110 people in attendance, both data providers and users, from a range of organisations:

• of the 94 participants who answered the question “What type of organisation do you work for or represent?”, 35 (37%) worked for a Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP); 19 (20%) worked for one of the following 3 main public sector organisations in Scotland (Scottish Government, Care Inspectorate and Public Health Scotland), while 16 (17%) worked for a care home or care home organisation
• of the 126 people who signed up, 31% were data users, 20% data providers, and 46% both provided and used data. (3% did not answer this question)
• a majority of participants came from the Central Belt, although there were a few from Aberdeenshire, Dumfries and Galloway and the Highlands and Islands

This document

This document summarises the comments provided & issues raised in the workshop, together with possible solutions suggested by participants. These issues and suggested solutions are quotes or paraphrases of workshop participants’ views, so do not necessarily reflect the views of the Scottish Government or our delivery partners, nor are they an indication of practicality. Please note that this list of issues and solutions may not be complete, but simply reflects the views we heard on the day.

In summarising, we have pulled comments together under eight key themes. In some cases, a comment may cover a number of themes, but to avoid duplication will only be listed once.

We have mostly not indicated who made each comment, so the issues discussed below are a reflection of the collective challenges faced by a number of different data providers and users. It should be noted, however, that there will be variation of experience even among data providers & users (e.g. the issues faced by a care home may be very different to those faced by an HSCP).

Finally, by its very nature, the document only focusses on challenges and possible solutions; it does not reflect areas where the systems currently work well for data providers and users.