“Fair for all”
Item 4 is the Scottish Executive's publication, "Fair for all". Members have received a paper from the clerks and they should also have received a copy of the document. I do not know whether it was sent out by the clerks or by the Scottish Executive.
We sent it out the day after the committee papers were issued.
Members should all therefore have received the document. Do members have comments on it?
I have read the report, but I have not seen the paper from the clerks. It may have gone to my office and I have not caught up with it yet.
I have several concerns about the report that might be answered in the paper. My concerns focus on the ethnic minority communities. An assumption can be made that services cater for and are designed for communities. I have experience of health boards and other agencies making that assumption without having any liaison or dialogue with communities. Progress must be made on community development and building capacity with communities, especially in relation to women in ethnic minority communities. I know from working with Asian women in the past that they often feel excluded from services. People often talk to the men in their communities and not the women. Asian women have the same aspirations and concerns in relation to community care, care in hospital and back-up support as any other women. The report contains good intentions, but not the mechanisms to ensure that they are fulfilled. I apologise for not having read the paper from the clerks. I will look for it.
In its conclusions, the report mentions evaluation and the specific performance indicators that will be used to measure each national health service organisation. That is a good intention, but to find out how it is working, or not working, broad evaluation must be carried out. That means involving the organisations and agencies that I am talking about. A stakeholder approach must be taken to performance indicators. All the agencies and organisations must be involved, including folk in the community who use the service, staff, trade unions and managers. That must happen and it must be laid down. We can talk about performance indicators, but unless they are qualitative they are meaningless. I do not see enough about that in the report.
The committee has experienced what Cathy Peattie describes in relation to almost every issue that we have considered. The suggestions look good on paper, but we do not know how the Scottish Executive will monitor their delivery at the coalface. The mechanisms are absent. The Executive says that there are opportunities to share best practice and that the document will have a catalytic effect and will make people reassess the situation, but there is no formal way of assessing whether health boards and trusts are implementing good practice and achieving the aims of the report. I know that the committee makes this point time and time again, but monitoring must be carried out and performance indicators must be put in place to enable us to assess whether the good intentions in reports are delivered. I question whether the report shows us how the Executive will scrutinise the delivery of the service.
The conclusions state that the broad actions that are outlined in the report will be underpinned with specific performance indicators and that those will be measured regularly.
It would be useful to write to the Minister for Health and Community Care to express the committee's concerns that scrutiny of delivery should be meaningful.
The point is how the indicators are measured and by whom.
We can raise those points with the Minister for Health and Community Care.
In relation to the committee's inquiry on Gypsy Travellers, the report states that Gypsy Travellers will be recognised as a separate ethnic group for the implementation of the plan.
Is it agreed that we write to the Minister for Health and Community Care with the comments that members have made?
Members indicated agreement.
Is it also agreed that the report be used in the examination of orders under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and that further work should be carried out on an analysis of the approach and the potential application to other areas within the committee's remit?
Members indicated agreement.
Meeting continued in private until 10:58.