Local Government Service Group Conference 19-20 June 2011

Base change to care services on solid evidence and not cuts

Mary McCrea

Inez Teece

John Gibson

20 June: As politicians in Scotland seem set to re-shape care services for vulnerable adults with proposals to merge social care and health within the NHS, conference supported Scotland's call for proper research into the experience of integration across the country, to inform UNISON's response.

Regional delegate, Inez Teece spoke of the union's suspicion of any move to reorganise based solely on the need to save money.

"Just by joining services together under one management structure doesn't mean that these services are integrated. Legislating to create integration will not necessarily make it happen," said Inez, adding,

"We are not ruling out change but we want to ensure that any change is based on solid evidence and will continue to provide the social model of care that we continue to fight for."

Mary McCrea, City of Edinburgh told conference that even though integration sounds like a good idea on paper, the process of transferring huge groups of staff, would be distracting and very expensive.

"There doesn't seem to be any real clarity about what they are trying to fix and how they are going to fix it," she said. "And what about the joined up/integrated service argument?" she added.

"We have been doing this quite successfully thank you very much for some time. On the ground, health and social work staff work together on a daily basis with NHS colleagues to meet the needs of vunerable people.

"My own experience as a hospital social worker means that as part of a multi disciplinary team, we work together to identify and provide a service which meets the needs of the individual.

"What stops us from doing that?" asked Mary. "An increasing demand for services and in an environment of budget cuts and privatisation. We have fewer resources to provide the quality care that is needed."

John Gibson, from Highland spoke about the proposals in his authority to integrate health and social care.

"Our experience so far suggests that you should definitely not go down that route," he warned.

A range of delegates from England and Wales spoke in support of the motion, highlighting their experiences of where integration has worsened services to vulnerable people and where joint working has been very successful on the front line, not because of integration but because of a commitment from staff to work in partnership.

top