National Care Service: equality impact assessment

The National Care Service (Scotland) Bill

The NCS Bill sets out the provisions necessary for the Scottish Ministers to establish a National Care Service to exercise responsibility for planning, commissioning and delivering social work and social care support services and for planning and commissioning of community health services, with Health Boards continuing to deliver community health services. The details of the design of the NCS will be established by working collaboratively with people with lived and living experience of the social care system to ensure that it operates in a way that supports those it is designed to help. The input of current delivery partners and stakeholders will be important to the co-design process. Many of the provisions in the Bill relating to the NCS are therefore powers to introduce secondary legislation, which will be based on the outcome of that further engagement and co-design with people with lived experience, delivery partners, and key stakeholders. Certain elements of the structures of the NCS, such as establishing the national structure as a directorate within the Scottish Government or an executive agency, do not require legislation and so provisions relating to these elements are not contained in the Bill, but are still addressed below.

In addition to setting out the provisions necessary to create the structures and governance arrangements for the NCS, the Bill also sets out provisions relating to: transfer of functions to the NCS; information standards and care records, complaints, breaks from caring, visiting rights in care homes, ethical commissioning, and the regulation of social services.