Category: West Lothian

Primecare Health Ltd were chosen to be partners with Fit for the Future because they displayed real values and vision for the future. This is their vision for what the project can give them and what they hope to achieve for their staff and the people who access their support:

“Our staff would be given a great opportunity to learn best practice and work with a model of care to be proud of in, achieving the best possible outcomes for service users. They would feel valued and included within the organization and be proud to be part of the success. 

Our service users would feel reassured that we are able to meet their needs and desired outcomes being able to support them with well trained and knowledgeable staff and feel involved within the design of their support. 

Primecare Health want to be successful and offer specialized care and support to all our service users and we feel that working with this project we will have the experience and knowledge to develop our care, in particualr for those with dementia.”

We can’t wait to get started working on reshaping this service with older people and their carers – we think this is a real opportunity to explore what ‘specialist’ care at home looks like – and how it can really change lives for people with dementia.

 

Last week was a very interesting week in West Lothian.

We met with 4 care homes in West Lothian, each with a different idea for innovation or improvement that they would like to test in a lab setting.

Proposed ideas included anything from a dementia carers group to a communication tool for staff! Some homes wanted to use the tool to test a radical change in a safe setting, whilst others wanted to explore an experience and have space to reflect.

We were overwhelmed at the feedback and are now in the process of getting to the core of these ideas and choosing the one that best serves the Reshaping Care for Older People Agenda and can be shared with other providers.

I was also able to attend a social service lab in a day centre in North Lanarkshire – as a participant and as an observer. While the full evaluation of this day will come later, I personally felt it was a really interesting way to work differently and I have high hopes for labs in West Lothian!

For more information on labs in general please visit IRISS’ Social Service Labs Website.

Stay tuned for more details!

 

Invitation to Participate: Care Home Labs

The joint IRISS (Institute of Research and Innovation in Social Services) and Scottish Care project Fit for the Future is looking for a care home in West Lothian that is enthusiastic about improving their services to support better outcomes for older people and interested in working in new ways.

What is a lab?

A Lab is the name given to an environment where the people involved in providing support can come together and try out a new ways of working. Labs can be used to test out service processes, interactions, products and experiences.

A social service lab offers the opportunity to test and develop news ways of working, utilising the knowledge and experience of all service stakeholders.

As a part of the joint IRISS and Scottish Care project Fit for the Future, we are looking for a care home in West Lothian who would like to use the lab to improve and change their services to improve outcomes for older people.

This opportunity could be used in three different ways, for example to:

• Understand the experience of care – i.e. specific transitions such as first entering a care home, leaving a care home to spend time in hospital or having family visit.
• Test out new ideas, i.e. adapting current service processes, interactions, products and experiences.
• Test the creation of new service, i.e. developing new service processes, interactions, products and experiences.

However we openly welcome other ideas in which the function and experiences of support could be approached.

What Fit for the Future can offer you as a provider

Partnership – We would provide support to develop your idea and the design of the lab to test this idea. It is vital that the people who will be part of the lab will be a part of this process.

Design – Depending upon the opportunity you want to explore, we would create the environments and prototypes you need in order to test the functionality and peoples’ experience of the idea.

Facilitation and recording – After the opportunity has been tested we would facilitate a discussion between everyone involved to discover their thoughts, opinions, ideas and experiences. We hope to capture learning from the day (in the medium that is most appropriate ie. Photos, videos) We will hope to capture the discussion and ‘debrief’ following the lab. This will mean that we have a robust record of the experience from multiple perspectives.

Evaluation – There will be a participative evaluation during their reflective session, and a series of follow up sessions after the lab to move forwards with learning.

Moving Forwards – This project aims to support the independent sector through change and improvement. We would be interested in supporting the involved provider to take the next step in utilizing their learning from their labs.

Sharing– IRISS & Scottish Care are interested in sharing the learning from this lab (both about the specific learning experience, but also about the medium of labs themselves). The participating provider must consent to share their experience of the process with other stakeholders.

Developing Your Idea

Ideas can come from anywhere. They can be solutions to problems, improvements for processes already in place or radical innovations.

This project has a focus on looking to the future of care, and making sure the independent sector is responding proactively to the Reshaping Care for Older People agenda. IRISS can also support you to source ideas and make safe spaces to ignite your creative spark!

Consider:

• The issue/problem that you are looking to solve or the aspect of your service that you would like to improve.
• What your idea for improvement is
• Who will this benefit? (i.e. staff, service users, carers visiting the facility)
• How this change would make you more ready to face the challenges of Reshaping Care for Older People.
• Any practical or ethical challenges for carrying this test out in a real care setting

Time Commitment & Joint Working

Below is the time commitment that your organisation would commit to in order to develop and execute the care home lab:

• Meeting to discuss labs and possible ideas within your agency
• Next meeting where you will present your idea for consideration
• Or Support to develop ideas and source ideas from staff, residents and families if needed
• 3 meetings over the space of 6-8 weeks where we develop the idea more in depth and design the lab with detail. These meetings should include all the people involved in the lab
• Final brief for the day including development of any materials and consent to film/capture the day
• 1 or 2 day lab
• 1/2 day to debrief after lab and think about moving forward
• An evaluation for the day- including main learning points and action plan for moving ahead.
• Ongoing development to ‘move forwards’ from lab (dependent on chosen output)

For more information on Fit for the Future please visit https://blogs.iriss.org.uk/fitforthefuture/

If you are interested in participating in the lab, or want to hear more about them please contact:

Rhiann.mclean@iriss.org.uk

07545696162

Welcome to the West Lothian section of the “ Fit for the Future” project, a joint project with IRISS and Scottish Care.

My name is Robert Telfer, I am the Development Officer for the Independent Sector in West Lothian and I am delighted to also be part of the Fit for the Future project team. My professional background has very much been in nursing, beginning my career in 1981. I became involved in care of older people in 1996 and before taking up my current post in April of this year had worked with older people in West Lothian for the previous 14 years. During that time I was aware of the changes and new challenges facing independent providers of care. These challenges are becoming more and more evident, due in part to demographic changes in our population. The chart below gives a clear indication that the increase in the number of older people in West Lothian over the next 20 years is far greater than anticipated in the rest of Scotland

Projected population, by age group, in West Lothian, 2013-2033 (General Register for Scotland (2010) Projected population figures 2013- 2033)

Age group	2013	2018	2023	2028	2033	Estimated percentage rise in population West Lothian	Estimated percentage rise in population Scotland
65-74	15,749	17,349	18,090	20,634	23,859	80%	50%
75+	10,709	13,213	16,626	19,466	22,062	150%	80%

Scotland’s older people are living longer and healthier lives than previously but it is well evidenced that health care and social care costs are greater in respect of those in our community over 75 and even more so for those over 85.

One challenge that we face is the anticipated increase in people suffering from dementia. The Lothian Dementia Project has projected an increase of 87% in the number of people suffering from dementia in West Lothian by 2024. This is a higher percentage increase than projected in our neighbouring counties, for example East Lothian has a projection of 49%, Mid Lothian 51%.

 This is a time of challenge for all of us who provide services and care for Scotland’s Older People which makes me particularly pleased to be part of this project which will actively involve independent providers in seeking and developing new tools and strategies to deliver high quality care and cope with the challenges we face.

If you are interested in finding out more about the project or taking part in West Lothian, please access the ‘Contact Us’ tab.