Open with Care – supporting people in adult care homes to have meaningful contact with others: progress report

Comments on the data

The nature, scope and limitations of data within this report are important to consider. As the majority is quantitative, its strength is in analysing the frequency, characteristics and trends of implementation numerically. However, it does not allow us to fully understand people's experiences such as the quality of contact, or their attitudes or beliefs. As Turas information is provided by care homes, it is not set up to capture residents' and family members' views.

In reporting terms, it is not expected that indoor visiting would reach 100 per cent during the pandemic, because of factors such as care home outbreak status or service type. In addition, as typically over 90 per cent of homes report each weekday, there are a small number of care homes that do not submit data each day.

Feedback from national work streams, such as the Open with Care Short Life Oversight Group members, or the CPAG Engagement Group, help provide some further insights into people's experiences. However, these tend to be focussed on relatives' experiences rather than those of care home residents. In engaging with a small proportion of all residents' relatives in Scotland, we cannot infer that views are representative. Also, these forums are focussed on finding solutions to issues, so feedback lends understanding to the types of issues arising rather than robustly measuring their scale or frequency or indeed, more widely, what is working well.

There are limitations to each data source and so it is important to treat each as illustrative rather than definitive. That said, when viewed together, the information provides important insights into overall progress and some of the experiences and issues which require to be addressed going forward.