More than 55 organisations have come together to call for the Scottish government to demonstrate a clear commitment to care and carers, as Ministers launch its first review in five years of the nation’s National Outcomes.

Scotland’s current National Outcomes – the puzzle pieces that build a picture of the country the Scottish government is trying to create – barely feature care and carers.

The ‘A Scotland that Cares’ campaign, which has backing from many of Scotland’s major social care, health and gender focused charities, frontline organisations and think tanks, say this has forced social care and carers into the shadows.

With a review of the National Performance Framework in which the outcomes sit launched earlier this week, the campaign is calling for people to back its call for a dedicated new National Outcome to fully value and invest in those experiencing and providing care.

If accompanied with a robust set of national indicators to track progress, the campaign says it believes this would ‘set Scotland on a path towards transformative change’.

The campaign took its crusade to MSPs last week, in a parliamentary reception which set out to highlight the invisibility of care within policymaking.

Attendees of the event, hosted by Karen Adam MSP, heard from four people with direct experience of care and their experiences of feeling undervalued, ignored and the lack of support.

Lindsay McCurly, a single parent from Glasgow, told the meeting that people forget carers have hopes and dreams which often get forced to one side when taking on a caregiving role:

“I had intended to be a teacher because teachers change lives. It can make me feel quite sad to think of the children that I couldn’t help, because I had to stay at home and be a carer.

“I feel valued but only through familial connections and through pride in the young man my son is becoming, but by greater society, no. There’s no support or help – you’re expected to know everything yourself.”

Karen Hedge, Deputy Chief Executive of Scottish Care, said that Scotland’s failure to track policy implementation has left the social care sector floundering:

“You’ve probably all heard of the saying that ‘what gets measured, gets done’. Scotland is rich in policy and legislation for social care, but it never gets done, does it? We have this huge implementation gap.

“It’s because for too long social care has been the Cinderella service. For too long we’ve look at it through the eyes of the NHS and through the eyes of the gendered dynamic of society.”

The Scottish government introduced its National Performance Framework (NPF) in 2007 to measure ‘how the country is doing’ through 11 National Outcomes, such as poverty, health and education.

The existing Outcome on Health includes an Indicator on ‘quality of care experience’, but the coalition argues this is ‘wholly inadequate’ as it does nothing to capture financial or personal wellbeing of carers.

Jamie Livingstone, Head of Oxfam Scotland – a charity at the head of the campaign – said the review of the Outcomes is an opportunity for Scotland to get it right:

“It’s time the Scottish government ends the glaring gap on care in its vision for a successful Scotland. It must use this review to put care at the top of the country’s agenda by creating a new National Outcome to drive progress towards properly valuing and investing in care and all those who provide it.

“Scotland will soon have a new First Minister, and they must seize this major opportunity to make a generation-defining commitment to build a Scotland that truly cares.”

The ‘A Scotland That Cares’ campaign is urging people across Scotland to back its call for a new National Outcome on care by sending a letter to the leaders of all major parties asking for their support.  

The consultation on the National Outcomes review will close on the 5^th of June.

 

Read more: FM candidates asked if they care about care; Don’t let social care ‘sink back to the shadows’; Ministers launch ‘more to care’ campaign; Social care wage settlement branded ‘derisory’;  Editorial: A resolution for social care; 

 

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