Care for the elderly in Glasgow to be scrutinised

Officers from the Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland will examine care for older people in Glasgow. Picture: TSPL

Officers from the Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland will examine care for older people in Glasgow in a joint inspection to assess how well social and healthcare services are working together to support the elderly.

They will interview local authority and health board chiefs, and speak to older people and their support workers to ensure no-one is at risk of “falling between the gap”.

Care Inspectorate depute chief executive Karen Anderson said: “The number of older people is growing fast and everyone deserves safe, high-quality, compassionate care.

“Our inspectors will make sure we look at how well health, social work and other agencies are all working together to deliver good outcomes for older people in local communities.

“Inspectors will look at records, speak to older people, visit services and interview staff.

“We know that most care services in the city perform well and now we want to test how well they are all working together with the health service.

“No-one should fall between the gap and these new inspections are important in making sure that doesn’t happen.”

Robbie Pearson, director of scrutiny and assurance at Healthcare Improvement Scotland, said: “Increasingly, individuals expect care to be integrated, flexible and responsive to their needs.

“The further integration of health and social care offers an opportunity to make care more sensitive to the needs of individuals and their families.

“As individuals move between care providers and care settings, we also need to ensure we have a more joined-up approach to scrutiny between Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the Care Inspectorate, and we will ensure that this scrutiny work is sensitive to the pathways of care that people follow.