Scottish Government

NATIONAL CARE STANDARDS COMMITTEE (NCSC) MEETING

Conference Room 11, Victoria Quay, Edinburgh,

10:30 , Monday 24 March 2006

Present: Adam Rennie (Chair), Marjory Barquist (Secretary), Michael Bews, Susan Brimelow and Ronnie Hill (for Jacquie Roberts), Janet Law, Janis Pelosi, Raymond Taylor, David Whiteoak, Tom Lamplugh, Jane Martin.

1.1 Adam Rennie welcomed everyone to the 18th meeting of the NCSC and introduced Tom Lamplugh from Health Department Analytical Services, who was attending particularly for Paper 2. Jane Martin took the minutes in place of Leigh Edwardson

1.2 Apologies had been received from Janie Allan, Jacquie Hughes, Jim McDonald and Jacquie Roberts.

2.1 The following action points from the last meeting were not continued as agenda items:

National Standards for Dental Services.

2.2 Ministers signed off the final version of these standards for publication in February. They would apply to NHS dentists immediately. The intention was for publication to coincide with National Smile Week in mid May and the Branch was working with NHSQIS to this end.

Disclosure Checks.

2.3 Janet Law again raised the issue of retrospective disclosure checks. This had been covered at an earlier meeting but Ronnie noted that safe recruitment practices would be part of the core inspection criteria in 2006/07. A document had been produced as a result of a mapping exercise of the NCS and other standards as part of the strategy for inspecting children's services. He would arrange to have this forwarded to the Sponsor Branch for circulation to Committee Members.

Action: Ronnie Hill,

Care Standards and Sponsorship Branch

3.1 The Committee had signed off these standards for consultation quite some time ago but various issues had delayed the consultation. The written consultation with the profession and providers at the end of last year had generated a reasonable response but consultation with service users had proved problematic. The contract for the consultation had been let at the second attempt to Accent Marketing, which now reported difficulty recruiting users despite its best efforts. The Committee agreed that if it was not possible to have user consultation this would be noted in the introduction to the published standards. A report on Accent's work on recruiting focus group members was expected at the end of the week and an update on the situation would be circulated with the Note of this meeting.

Action: Care Standards and Sponsorship Branch

3.2 It was also agreed that, when the working group considered the consultation feedback and any redrafting work, it would also be given information about any feedback on similar standards in the other independent healthcare services such as the dental standards. This would allow the working group to see the sort of points raised and the final wording of the standards.

4.1 Paper 1 referred. Following the low attendance at the previous meeting a request for comments had been circulated. The sole response (from the Scottish Out of Schools Network) was appended to the paper.

4.2 The meeting was clear that an 'easy read' format, large print and audio versions were most requested alternative formats. British Sign Language and 'child friendly' versions of appropriate standards were also needed. Initial costs were high for small production runs but unless there were significant changes to the Standards, ongoing costs were small. Ronnie advised that work was going on with Who Cares? Scotland on a child friendly version of the NCS for care homes for children and young people, containing illustrations and text. He would be reporting to the Care Standards and Sponsorship Branch on that. Michael mentioned work with Children's Asthma Standards which might produce results of interest to the Committee in this context. Adam noted that the wider the variety of formats for each set of standards, the more difficult version control became. Other organisations such as the RNIB, who published documents in various formats, might be useful sources of advice on this.

5.1 Paper 2, an updated version of that put to the previous meeting, referred. Amendments had been made following responses to a request for comments. Adam opened the topic to the meeting for discussion, noting that Tom was available to answer questions on research.

5.2 In a wide-ranging discussion the following points were noted:

· It was important to be clear about the purpose of the review - although the NCS and the Care Commission were closely linked, the review would not be about whether or not the establishment of the Care Commission had been successful.

· It was agreed this was not the appropriate time to undertake a full and comprehensive review of the NCS

· The omnibus survey carried out in 2004 had shown a poor awareness of the NCS. In the view of research colleagues a more targeted approach with those who use care services would be more informative.

· For care service definitions commenced in 2002 (a substantial proportion of services regulated) the cycle of inspection against the appropriate Standards was almost complete.

· It was noted that sets of Standards were not consistent in their approach to given topics and that this issue would need to be picked up in the review.

· The Care Commission would forward results of its NCS mapping exercise to the Branch for circulation to Committee members. This would help to show the current relevance of the Standards in joint inspections. Action: Care Commission

· Since the NCS were empowering, the general view was in favour of a focus on service users, and ensuring wide knowledge and understanding of NCS among them should help drive up the quality of care.

· 5 years after most were written, a view on whether the content and innovative format of the NCS still met the requirements and desired outcomes of service users might be helpful.

· There was interest in whether each care service definition in the Act required its own set of standards or whether the standards might in future be written so as to cover a wider range of services.

5.3 It was agreed that Tom would produce a paper which would set out the aims, objectives and methodology for a focused review of the National Care Standards. The paper will form the basis for discussion at the next meeting.

Action: Tom Lamplugh

6.1 As the NCS for independent medical consultants and general practitioners would not be ready for signing off until June or July, the meeting in April would be cancelled. Depending on when the promised paper from Tom was ready, the next meeting would be either on 22 May or 26 June. The date would be confirmed as soon as possible and a meeting schedule for the Autumn would also be drawn up.

7.1 There was no other business.

8.1 22 May or 26 June - see item 6.

Care Standards and Sponsorship Branch

April 2006