Crosslet House Care Home in Dumbarton – Cllr Marie McNair pictured with residents.
NOTEBOOK by BILL HEANEY
West Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care Partnership’s annual performance report shows it is the best-performing partnership in Scotland.
If that’s the case then The Democrat would like to know which of these partnerships is the worst.
The highlight of the report includes WDHSCP being the best performing HSCP in Scotland in relation to the proportion of care services graded ‘Good’ (4) or better in Care Inspectorate Inspections during 2019/20.
The report, for between 1st April 2019 and 31st March 2020, shows the performance and progress in providing services to children, adults and elderly residents and shows the partnership is meeting or exceeding most of its targets.
Perhaps the Church Street-based partnership has had a memory b-pass about the Covid-19 pandemic or the committee members and officials are suffering from “brain fog”?
Brian fog is what SNP friends of Margaret Ferrier, the Scottish MP who took a train to London and back and spoke in the Commons, not to mention going to Mass, attended mostly by elderly parishioners and celebrated by a priest, before doing a reading from the lectern on the altar.
In other words, the SNP are attempting to mitigate her misdemeanours, by pleading that she was on a parallel universe at the time.
Having read the first sentence of this piece of outrageous propaganda from the Council, we are reticent about publishing the remainder of it, so wear your mask and keep your social distance while doing so.
There is no mention of the number of deaths in care homes; no mention of the shortage of PPE; no mention of the fact that agency staff were going in and out of care homes such as Crosslet House in Dumbarton; no mention of the trauma care home residents and their relatives went through when they found “do not resuscitate” letters in their medical portfolios without a nod in the direction of consultation. And so much more.
According to their media release, West Dunbartonshire had the 7th lowest rate in Scotland for readmission to hospital within 28 days and was the second best performing HSCP for re-admissions within Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.
The report highlights the work of the dedicated Focused Intervention Team, who provide a rapid response service to people within the community to prevent unnecessary admissions to hospital where possible.
Between August 2019 and March 2020 556 residents were referred to the team, with 320 being assessed and avoiding an admission to hospital as a result.
This swift response helped allow residents to receive support at home or in a homely setting.
It adds that as part of the partnership’s preparation for the impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) the number of electronic Key Information Summary (eKIS) recorded for patients increased by more than 90%. This ensured the key information for those most at risk of serious health complications from the virus was up-to-date and available for professionals to access.
The rest of the media release states:
Another key achievement was 938 referrals for people experiencing problems with drugs or alcohol requiring assessment for treatments. A total of 95.4% of these people began treatment within the national target of three weeks.
West Dunbartonshire HSCP Mental Health Services also continues to progress with 246 face to face contacts rated 72% excellent, 18% very good and 10% as good.
Support for dedicated carers highlighted that 96.5% of carers feel able to continue caring when asked as part of their Adult Carer Support Plan and 255 Adult Carer Support Plans are in place. And 71% of young people who left care went on to employment, training, further or higher education.
The report also highlighted how facilities at Levengrove Park have supported Work Connect to provide work experience in gardening for up to 45 clients. The new Pavillion Cafe, has provided training in catering and hospitality skills for 12 Work Connect clients as well as generating an income and employing seven staff.
It’s sad to see they still haven’t corrected the spelling for Pavilion despite having that flagged up to them when they put the signs up at the Levengrove cafe.
There is no recognition in the report either that the initial projections for the much used, much appreciated Cafe were miles out or how much it actually costs to run or how and why the Council (or maybe again it was the officials making the decisions) decided to opt for a hastily put together Plan B which involves adult training projects in gardening and catering.
Levengrove Park in Dumbarton, where Pavilion is a big success.
Don’t get me wrong, the Levengrove Cafe has turned out more by accident than design to be one of the best local authority projects we have seen here for years, and I include the £17 million refurbishment of the Burgh Hall in that. The chamber there is still not fi
There is also confusion about who is the chairperson of this controversial committee which started life with a very large loan (more than £1 million if I recall) from the Council itself, mainly because there are two committees, the Audit Committee which is chaired by Cllr Marie McNair and the Health and Social Care Committee which is chaired by the unelected accountant, Allan MacLeod.
Confusing, is it not? I have a feeling that the Council likes to keep things that way since it appeared that not even the committee members appeared to have a clue what was going on when I attended a couple of meetings of it.
Councillor Marie McNair, Chair of WDHSCP Audit Committee, said: “This is a very positive annual report which highlights the great work being delivered by our dedicated employees despite the challenges faced due to the Coronavirus. We have many highlights in the report which clearly show residents are receiving high quality care delivered by dedicated staff. Over the coming year, we will work hard to maintain our progress and pay particular attention to some of the areas where we need to improve.”
Allan Macleod, Vice Chair of WDHSCP Audit Committee, said: “The report shows we are meeting or exceeding most of our targets, which is testament to our workforce. Due to the ongoing restrictions of the Coronavirus, we still face many challenges but I would like to take this opportunity to thank our dedicated teams for their continued commitment to residents who rely on our services and to ensuring they receive the right care at the right time.”
Next time the committee produces an annual report, let’s hope they can produce some details and provide statistics to back up the waffle therein.