National Care Standards Review

I feel that even though the NCS are out of date they were always based on the principals of human rights, but now need to be updated in regards to the Equality Act and European legislation that aligns with our own. Scotland, in my opinion has always had the better approach to standards of care and how care is regulated than they rest of the UK. I also think that best practice should be more prominent in the NCS as they become more generic.

This would make things much easier! People should be treated fairly, with dignity and respect irregardless of their health or social care needs. A child, an adult or an elderly person all deserve the same standards of care, why should there be different standards? It does not matter if your in an Early Years service, housing support or residential care - standards should be the same with only minor differences due to the varying nature of peoples abilities.

YES!! - It is sad in this day and age that we need to do this but with such diverse cultures providing and needing care in Scotland, I feel that we should have some values and ethos imbeded in the standards which reflect what OUR culture considers to be essential standards that should be upheld by all of us.

I agree that an overarching set of standards should be in place and underpinned by general sets specific to the service that is being delivered.

I feel personally that NCS should be the minimum standards that are acceptable for each and everyone of us. There could be an additional section in the general set that explains that these are also considered minimum standards but that each service would be expected to exceed all of these standards or 'aspire' to improve in other ways with a section in the standards, maybe after each set i.e. participation (minimum) then a bit about what would be expected of services to 'aspire' to. These would be easier to change and update periodically (say every 3 years) as practice standards across Scotland improved.

I think we would need to be careful of how this is done or we could find ourselves with 23 sets or more again! As a lot of this information is repetitive for services, i.e. Housing support and care at home often are linked so could be one set. Residential care for the elderly is often different from residential care for the LD sector, so separate. Early years and childminding along with after school and breakfast clubs are often separtate, EY could be one and the other ones could be incorporated into one? - There are many of these standards that could be developed into sets, i.e. Early Years, Criminal Justice, Adults, Older People just as our teams are divided into four sets of inspection teams.

I think combining them would be better and more streamlined. I like how the NCS now have a beginning statement of what is expected and then there are points made about how this should be achieved. I think some things need to remain static in a way that is familiar to people who use the services and providers of services.

I am repeating the above statement: I think combining them would be better and more streamlined. I like how the NCS now have a beginning statement of what is expected and then there are points made about how this should be achieved. I think some things need to remain static in a way that is familiar to people who use the services and providers of services.

This should form the basis for self-assessment in order to populate our evidence gathering tool. We should be able to go into a service and see that these standards are being met and if not why? This should be considered in our feedback to the provider and also in how the grading is affected.

I am not sure on this one!

As long as consultation across Scotland takes place so that views are diverse about what people want.

I have never been involved in an impact study so am not sure how I can answer this question knowledgeably.

Should there be a concern about the cost of regulating good care? I know it costs money to provide good care and to ensure good care standards are being delivere, but in the long run better public knowledge means better care, which means less burden on the health care system. It will take time but there should be a light at the end of the tunnel so to speak.

Just do it right!