Guest Post via Elaine Samson, Senior Policy Advisor at the Care Inspectorate

                                           

From our Dementia Carer Voices web site  

http://dementiacarervoices.wordpress.com/

It is with great pleasure that we are able to introduce our very first guest contribution to the Dementia Carer Voices blog. Over the coming weeks and months, these articles will give an insight into the work being undertaken by our partners across the sector to improve the lives of people living with dementia and their carers.

In this entry, Elaine Samson, Senior Policy Advisor at the Care Inspectorate takes time out to tell us about their ‘Hub’ – a new website providing access to a range of resources aimed at supporting improvement in the services they regulate and inspect.

The key message from the Dementia Carer Voices Campaign is “you can make a difference” and we hope that The Hub, recently launched by the Care Inspectorate, will have an important role in supporting people’s personal commitment to make a difference to the lives of people with dementia and their carers.

The Hub offers ‘one-stop-shop’ access to a range of resources aimed at supporting the social care and social work workforce, including students who will be responsible for ensuring the best possible care of Scotland’s ageing population.

Find below some of the key features of The Hub that can help you keep up-to-date with all the latest policy developments and resources available to support your everyday practice, and help make your personal pledges become a reality.

Knowledge – a central library, wherever you are

Also available as a mobile version on mobile phones and tablets, The Hub’s Knowledge section is a portable online library for when you are out and about.

It provides a visual library of good practice and policy documents, with a user-friendly search function and detailed tagging options that allow you to search the library for the publications most relevant to your work. The Hub includes a series of portals with information on the latest policy developments currently impacting on the social care sector, including dedicated policy portals ondementia and carers.

The Knowledge section also features the weekly Adult and Health Bulletin to keep people up-to-date on the latest news in the sector, and has a built-in newsfeed from the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (IRISS).

This complements a range of research tools to help you carry out your own research, including an embedded Social Services Knowledge Scotland (SSKS) search portal and a series of IRISS resources to support evidence-based work practice.

It also has lots of useful links particularly relevant to people with dementia and their carers and families.

Innovation – hear the voice of people using services

The Hub’s Innovation section features a collection of video case studies that showcase innovation and good practice taking place in care services across Scotland, highlighting the positive experiences of people using these services. These videos will be regularly updated over the coming months.

Anyone who has experienced excellent care or services that believe they’re delivering something innovative can submit their story to The Hub for consideration.

Improvement – supporting continuous improvement

Aimed at supporting continuous improvement in the delivery of care services, The Hub’sImprovement section features information on Centres for Excellence courses and training, including links to the Dementia Services Development Centre (DSDC), based at the University of Stirling.

It also has toolkits and resources produced by the Care Inspectorate, the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) and NHS Education for Scotland (NES). This includes links to our resource Make Every Moment Count aimed at improving the quality of life of older people receiving care services and NES’s resource The Pharmaceutical Care of People with Dementia.

What’s next?

We’ve just launched The Hub but we’re already looking at how we can make it bigger and better. This includes initial plans to develop a dedicated area on the site with practical resources on dementia, making them more interactive and accessible.

And as part of this work going forward, our Hub Team makes the following pledge as part of the Dementia Carers Voices Campaign:

To make a difference by aiming to make The Hub the best possible resource for informing and supporting services to deliver the highest possible care for people with dementia in Scotland.

Take a visit to hub.careinspectorate.com today to start taking action to deliver the pledges you have made to make a difference to the lives of people with dementia and their carers.

Elaine Samson
Senior Policy Advisor
Care Inspectorate