The RCN is encouraging members who work in social care or community healthcare settings to attend a session in order to share your insights on how the system should be improved. In particular, there are a number of sessions focused on ‘Valuing the Workforce’ where your views and experiences will be invaluable.
The online and in-person sessions are taking place from June – August. The ‘Valuing the Workforce’ sessions are taking place in Dundee (14th July 5:30pm), Skye (1st August, 4:30pm) and Shetland (16th August, 5:30pm). There is also an online session on 29th August at 4.30pm.
You can find more information about all of the sessions, and sign up on .
The Scottish Government is committed to creating a National Care Service and aims to develop the detail of these plans through a process of co-design with people who have experience of social care services, including the workforce and the organisations and people who deliver social care support.
It is also the Scottish Government’s intention to move some community health services into the National Care Service, although Ministers haven’t yet set out more detail about what exactly this would include or how it would work in practice. The creation of the National Care Service will therefore affect nursing staff working in both community health and social care.
RCN Scotland has been working to influence the Scottish Government’s plans, including successfully calling for the National Care Service Bill to be paused. While we share the desire to improve the quality and consistency of social care and health services across Scotland, there is so little detail in the current Bill that it is entirely unclear how it will achieve these aims.
Colin Poolman, RCN Scotland Director, said:
“We are calling for detailed plans for reform - developed in consultation with stakeholders including staff working at all levels of community health and social care - prior to any legislation being progressed. Ministers need to listen to those working in the sector and provide more details around how a National Care Service will work in practice and how it will address the problems facing a sector that is in crisis.
“Ultimately improving the quality and consistency of services cannot be achieved without increasing investment, tackling the workforce crisis and recognizing, and resourcing, the increasing need to deliver complex clinical care within community and care home settings.
“Services within the social care and community sectors must have the right numbers of staff, with the right skills, in the right place and that needs to start with increased investment and improving pay, terms and conditions and career pathways within the sector. We support the establishment of a national pay bargaining system and for nursing staff to have equal pay, terms and conditions to equivalent roles in the NHS.”
You can find more information about our work on this and how to get involved on our National Care Service for Scotland page.
