Introduction
Although the prime responsibility will fall on managers in local authorities, as the lead agency in community care, this guidance is also relevant to other managers in the partnership area including health authorities/boards and independent care agencies who will be contributing to these changes as assessors, care managers, purchasers or providers of services.
Because the Practitioners' Guide outlines the core process of care management, it is essential reading for managers who carry any responsibility for implementing the care management and assessment arrangements. It should also assist training staff to define the skills necessary to implement the arrangements. Managers and trainers should, therefore, read the Practitioners' Guide before turning to this Guide, which explores some of the issues around implementation.
This Guide
This Guide concentrates on the implications for managers of the updated guidance on Care Management. It is aimed primarily at senior managers in local authorities, health authorities/boards and other care agencies who are responsible for implementing the updated requirements of the 2004 Guidance. Section 1 of this Guide examines principles of good practice in each of these areas. The changes are being progressed in partnership areas and there is discretion to approach them in an evolutionary way. Although assessment is part of the care management process as a whole, arrangements for assessment and for care management are dealt with separately in Section 2 and 3 of this Guide. This builds on the Single Shared Assessment ( SSA) Guidance issued in 2001. Partnerships areas have been progressing the arrangements for full implementation of SSA across the care groups.
Section 4 focuses on the arrangements that have been developed within partnership areas in order that community care is delivered in a unified and effective manner. The partnerships that have been developed are across Social Work Services, the NHS, other local authority departments, other statutory agencies, the independent sector and the community.
The attention of managers across partnerships is drawn to this section of the Guide in particular. In order the principles of care management are implemented in full, a significant process of change management has been required. 'Action checklists' for managers have been included at the end of some sections, as a tool to support the review of change, and future planning.
The final section of this Guide deals with training. The focus is on the current developments and implementation of the training strategy to underpin the care management arrangements. Training is vital to support the changes in attitudes and skills that have been required. Service development and training are closely inter-related in the progress of the Joint Future arrangements and this section of the Guide will, therefore, be of interest not only to training staff but also to managers.
The Guide concludes with Annexes containing lists of relevant publications and commissioned studies, and a selected reading list.
Timetable of implementation
Partnership areas have developed implementation arrangements to support care management.
The templates outlining the progress made were submitted by partnership areas for the seminars which were held between January-March 2005. The full overview of the implementation plans were summarised for the event.
The CDROMs produced following the events provided a perspective across Scotland.
The Joint Future Unit website provides the overview of the implementation seminars and key issues. The feedback from the implementation seminars highlighted the need for the development of a national framework to support training at partnership areas. This resulted in the short-term working group being established August-October 2005.
The Care Commission are particularly keen to highlight the role of the Care Commission
in the Practitioner and Manager's guides due to the increasing number of Care Managers who are employed by Health Bodies or who have a professional background outside social work, and therefore are less likely to have prior knowledge of care regulation and what it means. The website details are included in the reference list.