Executive Summary
Introduction
In June 2009 the Older People and Age Team within the Scottish Government commissioned ODS Consulting to undertake a review of the Scottish Helpline for Older People ( SHOP). SHOP is a telephone helpline service and website for older people (aged 50 and over), supported by a Consortium committed to improving the delivery of information and advice to older people.
SHOP was established in 2004. The majority of its funding comes from the Scottish Government. The helpline is managed by Age Concern and Help the Aged in Scotland ( ACS). Currently there are five full-time members of staff and four part-time volunteers providing the helpline service
Methodology
The study was undertaken between June and September 2009. It involved a desktop review; consultations with members of the Consortium, staff and volunteers working for the helpline, a sample of service users and a selection of organisations representing older people not using the service.
This report identifies the current and emerging context in which SHOP is operating, its achievements to date, together with the views of a range of stakeholders. It makes recommendations for strengthening the service in the short term and considering how best to provide and how best to provide a helpline service for older people in the longer term.
The Context
Against a background of an increasingly ageing population in Scotland, access to good quality information and advice is one way to increase opportunities and remove barriers for older people. Telephone helplines can contribute to this.
Currently there are a number of telephone helpline services. Some provide general information, others specialist information. Some are targeted at older people; others are available to a wider client group. Some have national coverage, whilst others provide a local service. However, SHOP is the only one that provides national coverage specifically for older people in Scotland.
There are a number of developments that could impact on the SHOP helpline service in the future. The merger of Age Concern and Help the Aged raises the prospect of a more integrated approach being taken to information and advice provision across the UK, which could potentially add value to the SHOP service.
Meanwhile the Scottish Government is moving to establish Care Information Scotland, a telephone helpline service for older people seeking information and advice on community care services that will be managed by NHS 24. Community care is a significant and growing area of SHOP's work and it is not clear how issues of duplication an overlap will be addressed.
Key Findings
The number of people contacting the helpline has increased steadily since it was launched and is currently operating at around 15,000 calls annually. This is the maximum capacity that staff can currently manage. The use of volunteers has been successful but lack of space is restricting expansion or the opportunity to recruit additional volunteers.
Calls about community care, heating and benefits accounted for 57% of all calls to the helpline between October 2007 and June 2009.
The service is highly valued by those that use it. It is a universal, demand led service. However, uptake is not geographically representative and, although monitoring data is not collected, anecdotal evidence suggests that minority ethnic households are under-represented.
There is some confusion over the governance of the helpline. The respective responsibilities of ACS and the Consortium are not clear to all. There are different views as to whose helpline it is
There is also a lack of clarity about the role and purpose of the Consortium. Members identified some benefits of the Consortium - both to SHOP and to their own organisations. The Consortium was seen as bringing clear advantages to SHOP, in providing a source of expertise. But some members felt that SHOP did not always utilise the expertise within the Consortium to its full potential.
There are opportunities for the helpline to provide better value for money, particularly in terms of the charges made by ACS to host and manage the service.
There are a number of ways in which the service could be strengthened including the introduction of a quality assurance framework, improved monitoring and evaluation systems, and strengthening signposting and referral arrangements.
Recommendations
1. A dedicated telephone information service for older people in Scotland should be retained.
2. Care Information Scotland and SHOP should develop signposting/ referral systems with clear specifications of boundaries of information provision.
3. Over the next 12 to 18 months, SHOP should focus on strengthening its governance, achieving value for money and continuing to improve its operational management.
4. The Scottish Government should review the options for the long term management of the helpline in 2011/12. This review should take account of the role of Care Information Scotland and explore the opportunities for enhanced joint working, promotion and consolidation.
5. The future role of the Consortium should be considered once the long term arrangements for the helpline have been agreed. The role of improving information and advice for older people should be separated from the governance and management of the helpline.