My Health, My Care, My Home - healthcare framework for adults living in care homes: annual progress report September 2023
This is the first annual progress report for My Health, My Care, My Home. It looks back on the past year, highlighting some initiatives that have aided the delivery of the Healthcare Framework’s recommendations. It also references others that started prior to June 2022 that have since progressed.
A Skilled and Sustainable Workforce
A skilled and sustainable workforce is fundamental to the success of this framework, and over the course of the last year we have put our efforts into increasing the sector’s access to a wide range of tools and resources that meet their education and training needs.
We have also funded education and peer support programmes and worked with stakeholders across the sector to explore how learning and development qualifications can be stored and updated.
Advancing Care Home Practice (PgCert)
The framework highlights that care home managers are responsible for the overall management, development and quality assurance of care and support provided in a care home service, including the supervision of staff and the management of resources.
In response to this, we provided funding for five experienced practitioners working in the care home sector across Scotland (Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Highland, Edinburgh, South Ayrshire and Aberdeenshire) to undertake the Person-Centred Practice (Advancing Care Home Practice) (PgCert) course run by Queen Margaret University (QMU) during the 2022/23 academic year.
The course is a work-based programme supported by blended teaching, learning and assessment approaches, offering flexibility for different learning styles and preferences. The PgCert consists of three core modules that are delivered through virtual online learning. These align well with the aims of the framework and enable learners to make positive changes in their own care homes:
Theory and Practice of Person-centred Health and Wellbeing
Learners develop expertise in understanding and responding to the needs of the person, families and communities in a way that is consistent with the theoretical underpinnings and the values of person-centredness throughout the lifespan.
Leading Person-centred Practice for Health and Wellbeing
A focus on leadership and collaborative ways of working, evidence generation and implementation of health and wellbeing approaches for healthful cultures.
Advancing Care Home Practice
Learners consider the strategic context of care home practice and relevant ethical, professional and legal frameworks within which they practice. They will critically evaluate their role in developing systems and processes that embed safe and effective holistic practices, focussing their practice on promoting health and well-being for people with a range of physical and cognitive impairments through person-centred approaches.
The learners evaluated the course, and the feedback they provided has been very positive, which has enabled us to provide funding for a further five candidates to take part in the course this academic year (2023/24).
The course gave them an appreciation that valuing and respecting staff, and looking after their health and well-being, is essential in ensuring the residents’ care needs are met. It also reinforced the concept that providing person-centred care for residents involves the community as a whole. It has helped them better understand the barriers to improving standards, enabling them to introduce changes into their work practices effectively.
“Learning about person-centred care, it was a revolution to me that it involved the community, this has opened my eyes as a nurse. I thought of it as being the resident and their needs but it actually involves their community as a whole. This has made me re-evaluate the way I deliver care.”
“This programme highlights the importance of care home nurses in their own right. As a result of being part of it, I now champion better recognition for care home nursing.”
“The exploring of different theories around personhood have been fascinating and enlightening and have helped me to truly understand what matters to a person …….and how this understanding is helping me to become a better person-centred practitioner.”
Project ECHO
We have also been working in collaboration with the Scottish ECHO Centre to establish four new Project ECHO learning hubs across Scotland. To date we have already launched two hubs in Highland (3rd May) and East Ayrshire (19th July) and will soon complete work in Dumfries and Galloway and Aberdeen City.
The hub areas work closely with the ECHO Centre to define the structure and content for their hub. However the key principles of the framework are underpinned throughout the sessions. This will allow the hubs to reach as many of the workforce as possible to optimise skills and knowledge in a way that alleviates pressure on services, remobilises health and social care and creates resilience.
The Highland programme has so far consisted of five sessions, facilitated by the lead nurse for care homes in NHS Highland. Topics covered complex care in the current landscape, delirium, safe care and staff resilience.
The East Ayrshire programme is still ongoing, with the first session on Palliative Care led by the lead consultant at Ayrshire Hospice. Other sessions include end of life care, comprehensive care within an MDT, and empowering residents to make choices around advance care planning.
The Scottish ECHO Centre are launching their new website in September. In the meantime you can hear updates via Twitter @HHProjectECHO.
Learning and Development Resources
We have also continued our engagement with the sector to better understand some of the issues facing the care home workforce. We are extremely grateful to colleagues in Scottish Care and Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) for inviting us to join their Workforce Matters Regulatory Forum. This helps us better understand some of the issues facing the care home workforce, as well as keeping updated on some of the learning and development opportunities being developed.
Through our engagement with stakeholders we have learned about the value in having one resource that brings together all learning completed by social care staff. Currently, there are numerous learning and development resources made available by a number of providers and institutions, all in a variety of different platforms.
It is highly beneficial for learning to be validated and transferred to a staff member’s new role. SSSC highlighted to us their MyLearning App as being an integral part of this process, with its functionality to log learning activities and its portability between roles.
National Induction Framework
Effective onboarding and support are critical requirements in order to support high-quality care, deliver good outcomes for people experiencing care, and provide a solid foundation for new employees that help develop the necessary skills and experience to build a career in care.
Recognising this, and in partnership with SSSC and NES, a National Induction Framework was developed. This framework provides a consistent foundation from which new entrants can start their career with confidence, by working alongside the employers existing internal onboarding journey. This makes it easier for organisations to deliver a consistent onboarding experience that covers all the minimum standards expected of a new entrant, supporting knowledge building and skills development of new care workers.
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