By Bill Heaney
West Dunbartonshire’s Health and Social Care Partnership has been a failed experiment for the SNP government.
And of course for the SNP administration in Dumbarton who have failed miserably in their attempts to implement it.
I went to one meeting which I could not hear never mind make head nor tail of (it appeared those taking part were in a similar predicament) so I left.
Labour’s Councillor Martin Rooney has drawn attention to the fact that West Dunbartonshire has made “limited progress” in regard to self-directed care.
That is being far too kind to the SNP administration.
And now he has lodged a motion for the meeting in Clydebank tomorrow (Wednesday) calling on the Council to note the recent review of Self Directed Care by the Care Inspectorate.
Cllr Rooney said: “The Partnership has fallen further behind the Scottish average in terms of Self Directed Care.
“In 2015/16 the Scottish average implementation rate was 26% but by 2016/17 the national average had increased to 39%.
“However, West Dunbartonshire Health & Social Care Partnership implementation rate was just 3%.
“The West Dunbartonshire Health & Social Care Partnership was ranked 32 out of 32 local authorities in Scotland on the percentage of social care clients who had made an informed choice regarding Self Directed Care.
“The West Dunbartonshire Health & Social Care Partnership was ranked 28 out of 32 Scottish local authorities on the percentage of adults that used direct payments or personalised managed budgets to meet their support needs.
“The West Dunbartonshire Health & Social Care Partnership annual public performance report in 2017 reinforced its commitment to meeting the requirements of self-directed support legislation – but the partnership has failed to meet these commitments.”
He added: “The Care Inspectorate identified that there was evidence of poor personal outcomes in 32% of the case studies they read.
“The inspectors also noted that the West Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care Partnership had not used evidence to inform changes and improvement and had not fully assessed the potential implications of Self Directed Care legislation and the implications of the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 on its finances.”
Cllr Rooney has moved that the Council should call for a copy of the recently published West Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care Partnership report on Self Directed Care to be presented to the next Council meeting for public scrutiny by all elected members.
His motion to release yet another report which is critical of the Council will be discussed at the meeting at 6pm this evening.