Reshaping Care for Older People

Scotland’s older population is likely to increase by around two thirds in the next twenty years. Unplanned admissions to hospitals and care homes account for nearly one third of the combined resources that we currently spend on health and social care for older people. To address these demographic and funding pressures, we need to change the way we plan and deliver care. That means planning and providing services in much more integrated ways between GPs, hospitals and community-based health, social care, housing and independent sectors. It means improving the whole range of services and designing better ways of communicating across different agencies in support of this.

The Reshaping Care programme being taken forward through the Ministerial Strategic Group on Health and Community Care has over the last two years involved a series of eight primary workstreams. This work is moving towards a Delivery Plan which will focus on Care Pathways – ensuring those with complex needs are well supported by all parts of the care system; Care Settings, which will help older people to remain at home or in homely settings; and Community Capacity, to enable older people and their communities to provide "supported self care" (see community capacity building). The Ministerial Strategic Group is supported by an official's Delivery Group which is in turn assisted by the National Reference Group for Older People's Care on Reshaping Care matters - further details of these groups can be found here.

In 2012-13 the Scottish Government is allocating £80 million to the Change Fund to enable NHS Boards and local authorities, together with voluntary agencies, to redesign services for our growing older population. We are working directly with them to decide where this money needs to be invested to improve services, under the banner of Reshaping Care. The JIT has made available a set of support materials and will be working directly with partnerships as they prepare local Change Plans required in order to access the Change Fund. More information about this can also be found on the Scottish Government website.

A national event was held on Wednesday 2 February 2011 at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh a) to confirm the strategic direction of the Reshaping Care programme and b) work through preparation of local Change Plans. You can view more material and presentations from this event here.

The engagement phase of the Reshaping Care for Older People ran from May till the end of September 2010. It aimed to stimulate discussions locally and nationally about what needed to change in the delivery and funding of care for older people to meet the dual challenges of demographic change and funding constraints.

Decisions regarding the future care of older people in Scotland need to be informed by a wide range of views. For this reason, Scottish Government and partners gave a clear commitment to an extensive programme of public engagement as part of the work of the Reshaping Care for Older People programme. Given the long term importance of the issues for everyone, the engagement phase aimed to ensure that as many people as possible had an opportunity to share their opinions.

Summary Report [189Kb]
Survey report [402Kb]

Reshaping Care for Older People: A Programme for Change 2011-2021

This Programme provides a framework, built on consensus across all sectors and interests, to address the challenges of supporting and caring for Scotland’s growing older population into the next decade and beyond. We will continue to refresh and update this document to ensure it operates as a key driver for Reshaping Care. We will develop more considered analysis and proposals from the principles it contains and set these out in a second volume.

A Programme for Change [223Kb]

Strategic Joint Working between NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC)

The NES and SSSC are supporting the health and social care workforce through progressive education focussed on capacity building for improvement and driving forward new ways of working ensuring that the workforce is fit for purpose, responsive to change, flexible and of the highest quality.