Chamber and committees

Guidance on Free Personal Care was renewed to include the extension of free personal care and this was sent in December 2018 to COSLA, Chief Officers and Chief Finance Officers of Health and Social Care Partnerships, Chief Executives, Chief Finance Officers and Chief Social Work Officers of Local Authorities, Social Work Scotland’s Self-directed Support Practice Forum and the Social Work Scotland Adult Social Care Committee.

https://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/publications/cc2018_03.pdf

Funding was provided to cover expected loss of income from existing service users, demand from new service users, which may build up over time, payments for self funders in care homes and administration costs associated with the implementation of the policy, which could include training.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the amount of training health and social care staff in each local authority area have had in relation to the extension of free personal care to people under 65.

I refer the Member to the answer to question S5W-26645 on 19 December 2019. The Chronic Pain Specialty Group workshops and report was commissioned as one part of the programme of twelve specialty groups, and there was no separation of costs for individual specialties.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Guidance on Free Personal Care was renewed to include the extension of free personal care and this was sent in December 2018 to COSLA, Chief Officers and Chief Finance Officers of Health and Social Care Partnerships, Chief Executives, Chief Finance Officers and Chief Social Work Officers of Local Authorities, Social Work Scotland’s Self-directed Support Practice Forum and the Social Work Scotland Adult Social Care Committee.

https://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/publications/cc2018_03.pdf

Together with the First Minister, I officially launched the extension of free personal care at an event at Capability Scotland which received extensive media coverage.

The Scottish Government produced a short Q and A document for the public setting out the key features on the policy which is available on our website.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/free-personal-nursing-care-qa/

I also took part in an interview with the Scottish Commission for Learning Disability to produce video clips setting out how disabled people can access free personal care. These are also available on the Scottish Government website.

https://blogs.gov.scot/health-social-care-integration/2019/03/29/free-personal-care-for-under-65s/

The Scottish Government have made the following funding available to the Digital Health Institute/Glasgow School of Art for organising workshops and reports on 12 NHS disciplines to aid the Scottish Access Collaborative’s plans in:

(a) 2017-18 - Nil.

(b) 2018-19 - £373,000

(c) to date in 2019-20 -£10,000

The level of need for social care support varies between local areas depending on population and other local factors. Social care support assessments carried out by local authorities include whether a person requires personal care elements. The Scottish Government does not obtain local information relating to specific volumes of social care support assessment applications/referrals. You may wish to contact the local authorities directly to ask if this information is available.

This is the first year of this policy and we are working closely with Health and Social Care Partnerships and COSLA to monitor its impact, including costs and funding. A summary of our findings will be published in due course.

We are working closely with Health and Social Care partnerships and COSLA to monitor the costs of the extension of the free personal care policy and this will help to inform future funding allocations.

The Scottish Government will publish its spending plans in due course as part of the Scottish Budget.

The following table provides the financial allocation by Local Authority in 2019/20 for the extension of Free Personal Care to under 65s.

Transport Scotland expects to have received all quotations related to the installation of ice sensor equipment this month. Evaluation of quotations will take place in early January and equipment will be installed as soon as possible thereafter. In the meantime, the bridge Operating Company (Amey) has robust procedures in place and will be monitoring the Queensferry Crossing to ensure the continued safety of road users.

The Scottish Government does not routinely comment on the work of individual researchers.

Advances in dementia research require sustained global effort. Scotland has a wide range of researchers in this field and our commitment in Programme for Government to establish Scotland's Brain Health Centre - the first of its kind - will help enhance focus on dementia research, including in the area of prevention.

We also fund the NHS Research Scotland Dementia and Neuro-progressive Research Network to support eligibly funded and commercial clinical studies hosted by the NHS here.

Researchers can also apply for funding to the Chief Scientist Office’s funding committees. Details of these are available from the CSO website https://www.cso.scot.nhs.uk/funding-2/response-mode-funding-schemes/ .