This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Iain Gray Welcomes New Housing and Community Care Guidance
28/07/1999
New guidance to improve the delivery of community care to people at home was launched today by Scottish Executive Deputy Minister for Community Care Iain Gray.
The document - Modernising Community Care-The Housing Contribution - encourages housing, social work and health agencies to work together in the provision of community care services.
Mr Gray, who marked the launch of the guidance with a visit to An Cala, a supported housing project in Kinross, said:
"Housing agencies have a vital and key role to play in the successful delivery of community care to people in their own homes. This document sets out a range of practical steps agencies can take together to make community care work.
"It is essential that community care users receive the correct support they need to maintain an independent lifestyle. This latest guidance, alongside other recent initiatives, will help us achieve our aim of enabling people with community care needs to live at home wherever possible.
"This project here in Kinross is an excellent example of what can be achieved through joint working and through involving carers and those being cared for. It enables people with learning difficulties to lead a much more independent life.''
BACKGROUND
1. The purpose of the guidance is to overcome administrative obstacles to co-operation between housing, health and social work agencies. It is intended as good practice guidance for both senior and fieldwork staff. Although aimed primarily at those in the housing sector, it is also relevant to health and social work agencies who work with the housing sector to provide care, particularly at home.
2. The guidance covers a range of issues surrounding the planning and delivery of community care. These include strategic planning, client assessment arrangements, hospital discharge procedures, working collaboratively in local areas, how to deliver and implement community care, options for dealing with clients wishing to remain at home, housing management issues and monitoring and evaluation.
3. The guidance augments The Scottish Office 1994 circular, Community Care - The Housing Dimension, which advised on an inter-agency approach to housing and community care. It also complements Modernising Community Care-An Action Plan, launched jointly in October last year by the then Ministers for Health and Housing, Sam Galbraith and Calum McDonald, and also the Scottish Homes policy paper on Care in the Community published in August 1998.
4. The guidance was first issued in draft in December 1998 to more than 300 organisations in the housing, social work and health sectors with an interest in community care. Many of these offered suggestions and ideas for inclusion, including examples of good practice that can be adapted to particular circumstances.
5. An Cala is a four-bedded centre for people with profound learning difficulties who had been cared for at home by their families for many years. The building is owned by the Gowrie Trust, an arm of the Gowrie Housing Association. Scottish Homes provided 30% of the capital funding for the project. The remaining 70%, (£170,000), was raised by voluntary donations through People United for Supported Housing, an association made up mainly of parents of children with learning difficulties.
News Release: SE0171/99
28 July, 1999