Acknowledgement
We wish to thank everyone who assisted us during this pilot multi-agency inspection. We received a warm welcome from everyone we met and we are grateful to them for the time and effort they took to assist us. We particularly appreciate the way the local co-ordinators provided us with support and information throughout the inspection.
Joint evaluations
The multi-agency inspections for community care services have adopted the SWIA six point scale. In this multi-agency inspection of services for older people, the inspection team has provided a joint evaluation for each of the six areas for evaluation, as set out in appendix 1: Model for the multi-agency inspections of services for older people.
The joint evaluations apply to collaborative working between health and social work services within the partnerships. For this reason, they may differ from the evaluations in the SWIA performance inspections. There are no joint evaluations given to a single agency or in chapter 5 which considers the Forth Valley-wide issues.
The joint evaluation scale
Level | Definition | Description |
|---|
Level 6 | Excellent | Excellent or outstanding |
Level 5 | Very good | Major strengths |
Level 4 | Good | Important strengths with some areas for improvement |
Level 3 | Adequate | Strengths just outweigh weaknesses |
Level 2 | Weak | Important weaknesses |
Level 1 | Unsatisfactory | Major weaknesses |
The report format
We collected a very large amount of information during the inspection. This report cannot do full justice to all that we learnt. Instead it draws out the main themes about collaborative working, backed by a range of selected evidence.
Except where the inspection team is expressing an opinion, the report is written in the past tense. Where we use quotes from individuals, they represent opinions we heard widely expressed, not just one individual's views.
The report uses the following words to describe numbers and proportions in relation to the results from the various surveys:
Almost all = over 90%
Most = 75-90%
Majority = 50-74%
Less than half = 15-49%
Few = up to 15%.
The term 'social work services' covers both social work and social care services, either directly provided by councils or commissioned from the independent sector.