The Fife Dementia Strategy: 2010 – 2020 - The Knowledge Network

4.7.3 Improve joint working and communication within and between
providers and regulators of care at home services across Fife in order to
ensure quality services are being provided in a coordinated and
effective manner.
In order to improve services efforts must be made to reduce fragmentation,
and improve communication and joint working between the Council and other
local providers of care at home. By establishing better and more consistent
methods of communication the Council and NHS can work along side private
and third sector providers to ensure the needs of people with dementia are
being met.
Training and development provided for care at home workers vary significantly
by organisation, and the same is true in regard to dementia specific
knowledge. Many service providers feel that financial and time constraints
limit their abilities to provide the level of training they would like to, and that
this negatively impacts the quality of service provided. This is despite evident
that suggests investing in and educating staff can improve staff morale,
reduce turnover, reduce future adverse incidents and lead to financial savings.
It is proposed that a Home Care Delivery Group for all services providing care
at home in Fife will be established and organised by Fife Council on behalf of
the Health and Social Care Partnership. The chair of the group will alternate
between services involved, and the Group will focus on discussing issues and
good practice surrounding standards of care, care planning, ensuring services
are coordinated and actively communicating, and addressing the particular
issues of specialist dementia care. One of the issues the group will address is
how care at home staff can be more involved in Care Commission reviews to
ensure more dialogue between employees and Care Commission occurs.
This will be done to ensure a more accurate review, and also to improve the
relationship between the Care Commission and providers to encourage
alliance and learning.
In order to improve the standard of training care at home workers receive the
Council and NHS will work in partnership with other providers in Fife through
the Home Care Delivery Group to develop and implement a standardised
training programme. NHS Fife and Fife Council have a unique position to
other care providers as they can work to improve services through their
commissioning methods and standards as well as through knowledge
transfer. In an effort to improve the quality of care provided at home
throughout Fife, the Council will continue to work with commissioned services
to review standards for commissioning care at home, and ensure they are
aligned with the key elements of care as indicated by service users –
reliability, flexibility, continuity, communication, trust-worthiness, staff
knowledge, and skills and attitude 41 . The criteria for selection which are
based on these key elements of care will involve minimum training standards
with dementia specific elements and standards to ensure commitment to
41 Francis J & Netten A (2004). Raising the Quality of Home Care: A study of service users
views. Social Policy and Administration. 38(3): 290-305.
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