Hello and Welcome

Welcome to the first ALLIANCE newsletter to support the growing Scottish House of Care (HoC) Network.

Following the work of Tim Warren, I came in to post at the start of May as the national House of Care Programme Manager. Early days in post are always a steep learning curve and I've begun to meet with colleagues across Scotland through the local Steering Group meetings and events.

I hope to bring my experience in the worlds of health and social care policy and practice to support the HoC model embed and spread in Scotland in support of real and sustainable transformational change.

Read my viewpoint on my first seven days in post.

Cath Cooney
Programme Manager House of Care

Origins of House of Care

The Scottish Government in partnership with The ALLIANCE are promoting the adoption of Collaborative Care and Support Planning as an evidence-based approach in meeting the needs of people living with long term conditions in Scotland -  the House of Care.

Page 35 of the ALLIANCE's recent publication Developing a Culture of Health provides more information on the House of Care approach and what it can achieve.

Read the full report here.

Year of Care Partnerships

The House of Care approach has emerged from a series of pilots in England that looked at improving Diabetes Care and we are working alongside the Year of Care Partnerships to build the capacity of the workforce in early adopter sites in Scotland. See the recently published Year of Care House Journal.

Scotland's HoC Adopters

The House of Care is a model which helps to make sense of the various contributors to living well in communities. Each of the structures,the roof, foundation and the two walls of the house, represent the essential elements needed to enable people to be in the driving seat of their care. The House of Care is useful as it illustrates the components required to ensure that care and planning conversations link people to sources of support. Mutual signposting and referrals represent the crossing pathways which connect the structures of the house.

ALISS is a valuable element of the foundation of the House of Care, because of its role in gathering and sharing information about sources of support, and in gathering data which can be used to guide allocation of resources. Funded by the Scottish Government and the British Heart Foundation,  The House of Care Adopter Programme, directed by the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE), works across five sites – Ayrshire & Arran, Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire, Lothian and Tayside. The focus of the programme is on ensuring people living with long-term conditions:

• are empowered by the model of care and the care planning process
• are enabled to articulate their own needs, deciding on their own priorities, supported by health and social care professionals through a collaborative conversation
• are supported to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence to manage their
condition(s) effectively in the context of their everyday life; and
• have an improvement in their experience of care, which should become more coordinated, with a measurably improved ‘patient experience’.

The Royal College of General Practitioners, both at a Scotland and UK level, are strongly committed to supporting developments in collaborative care and support planning, viewing it as fundamental to the change required to address the crisis in general practitioner recruitment. Their Blueprint for Scottish General Practice and 2016 Manifesto make explicit mentions of their support for the House of Care programme in Scotland.

Contact

A Network is emerging and capturing and sharing the stories of how the HoC is supporting Care and Support Planning will be important as we build the Scottish Capacity. Links to local activity will be gathered and shared over the coming months.

Please share this Newsletter widely with your contacts.

Follow us on Twitter @HoCScot