Cambuslang Community Council have submitted a response to the Consultation on the South Lanarkshire Health & Social Care Partnership Strategic Commissioning Plan.
In Cambuslang/Rutherglen, the 65+, 75+ and 85+ populations are expected to increase by 13.1%, 10.2% and 18.7%, respectively by 2021 compared with 2016. The SL Commissoning Plan acknowledges that the increase in the ageing population will involve more complex health and care needs. However, what is not clear in the 2016-19 Plan is how the health and social care budgets are to be configured to take these changes into account, especially as budgets seem to have been static over the past three years.
A great deal of care is provided by carers on a voluntary basis. However, the SL Health & Social Care Partnership Annual Performance Report indicates that almost 60% of carers in South Lanarkshire do not feel supported in their caring role. We need to see much more effective support being provided. The provision of respite care also needs attention.
South Lanarkhire HSCP are proposing to provide more care in the home. There may be a good justification for this, but it has not adequately been discussed and justified to the community of Cambuslang (outside the world of professional and specialist bodies); and the local implications have not been discussed with our community before decisions are made. Care often involves a complex mix of requirements, for which transitional and home-based provision needs to be properly resourced. Terms such as “self-management” and “re-enablement” may be good in principle but there are many questions of how they can work effectively in practice.
The HSCP annual report contains commitments to ‘building and celebrating communities’ with objectives of: supporting and promoting community development; enabling local communities to identify where and when public service organisations such as health and social care can add value to local assets; supporting local communities to understand and have knowledge of their local asset base; and utilising locality planning arrangements to facilitate a community development approach.
Unfortunately, the experience of Cambuslang Community Council is that these objectives have not been applied in practice to date. We are urging more active engagement with the community – many people in Cambuslang are unaware of the changes proposed – and we hope to set up a meeting with the SLC Director of Social Care.
A copy of the submission by Cambuslang Community Council is here
For more information on the South Lanarkshire Health & Social Care Partnership Strategic Commissioning Plan, annual performance reports and other information, see here.
If you have any views on the current and future provision of health & social care in Cambuslang, please get in touch with us on cambuslangcomco@aol.com