26th July - Carers and Young Carers Strategy Launched
The Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) today launched a new Carers and Young Carers Strategy for Scotland.
The adult strategy - Caring Together - lays out a ten-point, five year plan with specific commitments to help carers, including:
• Creating a Carers Rights Charter
• Investing in carers training, building on an existing £281,000 investment
• Improving the identification of carers by health and social care services
• Making carers' own health and wellbeing a priority
• Promoting carer-friendly employment practices and encouraging income maximization
The importance of breaks from caring are also recognised with a commitment of £5 million over five years to support and develop new, personalised forms of short breaks and respite care. The detail of how this funding will be used is still to be worked through but the money will be channeled through the voluntary sector and every penny will be used to deliver the outcomes intended.
Chapter 13 on Short Breaks also identifies eight specific action points to be taken forward over the next five years. These include initiatives to identify and export examples of good practice to other parts of Scotland, to find ways of using volunteering to create more opportunities for short breaks, to strengthen the role of the NHS as a strategic partner in the planning of respite provision, and to look at what can be done to develop emergency respite support to carers. Information will be collected annually from local authorities and partners to ensure that progress is being made.
The Scottish Government’s manifesto commitment to introduce a guaranteed minimum entitlement to respite for those in greatest need has fallen victim to the economic downturn and the resultant pressure on local authority and health board budgets. However, the commitment has not been abandoned altogether and the strategy promises to reassess the timescale for the delivery of the entitlement. The successful implementation of the various actions around short breaks, as well as the introduction of the Carers Rights Charter, will we hope pave the way.
The young carers strategy, ‘Getting it Right for Young Carers’ is published as a separate strategy but one which links across to the adult version. The strategy is clear that there are many positive aspects to being a young carer, but they should not suffer the burden of inappropriate caring. The strategy emphasises that young carers deserve to be children and young people first and foremost, and the strategy lays out how services should respond to help achieve this.
To view both strategies and appendices, please go to: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/07/23153304/0
17th May - Shared Care Scotland's response to Self-directed Support Strategy Consultation
The Scottish Government consultation on a new Strategy for Self Directed Support in Scotland is another key milestone in the development of more personalised approaches to the delivery of health and social care services. However we believe that any increase in pace must be met with an increase in the availability of high quality support services that can help people to take on more responsibility for managing their care.
30th April - May 6th...How will you vote?
Anyone watching the TV Leader Debates will be aware that the importance of breaks for carers featured in two of the three debates. This demonstrates perhaps the strength of feeling on this issue and the voting power of carers. Let’s hope this translates into real action on the ground when the election dust starts to settle.
Please sign our own Breakthrough Manifesto for change: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/breakthrough2010/
Bemis has provided an excellent summary of the different political party manifesto commitments. Health and social care is of course a devolved issue but nevertheless it’s useful to see the position taken.
23rd February - Final figures for additonal respite weeks 2008-09 published
Following a verification exercise by the Scottish Government, revised figures have now been published for the number of additional respite weeks provided between 2008 and 2009. As expected these latest figures reveal that there has been much less progress than previously reported with an additional 1,150 weeks achieved compared to the previous figure of 19,000 weeks.
The detailed breakdown by local authority, age band and type of provision (over night or day time services) also reveals a mixed picture across the country. 19 Councils have reported an increase in respite services in 2008/9 compared to 2007/8 figures and 12 Councils a decrease. (1 Council reports no change).
Services to disabled children and young people have been hardest hit with an overall loss of 1,120 weeks or 4.7% compared to the previous year.
In a speech to the King’s Fund, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg set out the party’s respite care guarantee, providing a week’s break from caring every year to the 1m unpaid carers who provide more than 50 hours care each week.
"It is a simple promise: if you care for more than 50 hours a week, you will have the right to a full week of respite.
Giving you the time you so desperately need to rest, recuperate, or simply have a holiday.
This commitment to carers would finally acknowledge the debt all of society owes to carers. And it would make a difference, a real difference, to a million families straight away. "
15th December - Progress towards additional 10,000 weeks of respite care
Provisional figures have been published today indicating Scotland's councils have achieved an extra 19,000 respite weeks in total - rising from 174,000 to 193,000 - while there has been a slight fall in the number of overnight respite weeks from 64,000 to 63,000.
Public Health Minister Shona Robison said:
"Councils are performing very well in providing more vital respite weeks to carers up and down the country. Respite makes an enormous difference to carers and their loved ones, which is why I'm pleased we're making progress.
"We do know there's more to be done. This is only provisional data at this stage. While it's very encouraging, it's highlighted that councils are counting their weeks in different ways and some are now reporting more thoroughly - making year-on-year comparisons more difficult.
"But this should not detract from the hard work by councils and the progress they're making. I'm grateful to Scotland's local authorities for their hard work towards delivering more respite weeks and - more importantly - I'm confident this extra respite is making a valuable difference to families throughout Scotland."
1st October - The National Dialogue on Dementia
The Scottish Government is seeking views on the development of a Dementia Strategy for Scotland, due for publication in April 2010. The consultation seeks to encourage and support the widest possible engagement by organisations, groups and individuals with an interest in this area.
The deadline for submissions is Monday 16 November 2009.
For further information go to:
8th June - Carer's Week: The Breakthrough Manifesto is launched by Shared Care Scotland with an open letter to Shona Robison, the Minister for Public Health.
Shared Care Scotland also launches its Online Short Break Planning Pack. This pack has been developed to help service users and carers to be more in control of all aspects of their short break/respite care by increasing their knowledge about what’s available or possible.
24th March - Why carers still don't get a break. Herald newspaper article on the lack of respite support available to people experiencing or recovering from mental health probelms.
18 March - A 'Good Ideas' booklet to help carers in their work with older people has been developed by the RBS Centre for the Older Person's Agenda (COPA), in association with NHS Health Scotland and the City of Edinburgh Council's Department of Health and Social Care.
The booklet offers a host of useful practical suggestions and has been developed to help day carers and respite carers who work with older people in their own homes.
13 March - Shared Care Scotland Analysis of Respite Data 2007-08: Friday 13th will be an unlucky day for some as Shared Care Scotland publishes its latest analysis of Audit Scotland's performance information relating to local authority provi
ded or arranged respite care. The figures once again reveal a wide disparity in the level of overnight and day based short break (respite care) services available. The most unlucky group appear to be carers looking for services providing overnight breaks.
Also published today is 'Give us A Break - Turning Commitments into Action'. This information leaflet has been co-produced with the Coalition of Carers in Scotland and provides an update on recent policy developments relating to short breaks and respite care.
22 January - Getting it Right for Carers: Scotland's National Carer Organisations have launched a campaign to seek to persuade every local authority and local NHS Board to strengthen its efforts and identify what it will do to support the vital work delivered by Scotland's estimated 700,000 carers. This follows the Scottish Government /COSLA 2007 Concordat which provides councils with greater spending autonomy and higher allowances in return for agreeing to meet specific outcome targets.
19th December - Shared Care Scotland has been awarded £10,000 by the Scottish Government to develop a set of Care Break Planning and Evaluation resources. Infusion Cooperative Ltd will be working with SCS over the next 3 months to develop the toolkit ready for piloting from mid 2009 onwards.
5th December - Funding for carers across Scotland was announced today, marking Carers Rights Day. Public Health Minister Shona Robison described the over £13 million pounds package of measures as a 'down payment' to increase support.
4th December - CoSLA and Scottish Government write to local authorities setting out commitment to 10,000 additional respite weeks.
28th November - The Scottish Government publishes its revised Short Breaks Guidance. The aim of this guidance is to improve the planning of respite and short break services by local authorities and health boards - see below (17 July).
Please find below the links to revised short breaks guidance, jointly issued by the Scottish Government and CoSLA and published today on the Scottish Government's website.
This guidance is available on the Scottish Government website at:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/11/20094716
And as an Easy-read version at:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/11/20094628
Shared Care Scotland: Short Breaks and Respite Care Services Data Analysis
To coincide with the publication of the guidance, Shared Care Scotland is publishing its own statistical compendium of local authority provided/arranged respite care provision, based on the performance data provided by Audit Scotland.
Download here: (Excel Spreadsheet):
A PDF short summary can be downloaded here:
17th July - Shona Robison, Minister for Health and Community Care confirms Government's commitment to increase short break and respite care provision by 10,000 weeks over the next 3-years. To meet this target within the 3-year timeframe the Government will be allocating a further £4million to local authorities in addition to funding already provided as part of the Government/COSLA Concordat arrangement.
The additional weeks will be achieved as follows:
2,000 extra respite weeks in 2008-09
6,000 extra respite weeks in 2009-10
10,000 weeks in 2010-11
Click here to link to Scottish Government press release.
The Government will also shortly be publishing guidance to local authorities and their Community Planning Partners to support improvements in short break provision through better strategic planning, more person-centred approaches to service design and closer involvement with carers and service users.
25th June - Shared Care Scotland sends MSP's postcard to wish them well as they begin their summer recess....but not to forget the fact 
that many thousands of Scotland's carers will go without a break.
7th June - Shared Care Scotland launches OSBIS, Scotland's first online national directory of short break and break from caring services.
Download more information here
Link to directory: www.carebreaksscotland.org
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