National Care Home Conference 2015

Category: Healthcare - Posted On: Nov 25 2015


The National Care Home Conference is an annual event organised by Scottish Care and this year it was held at the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow on Friday 20 November 2015.

Mark McColgan from the EQ Healthcare team attended the conference with over 450 other attendees, mostly made up of a mixture of care home owners, managers and other staff.

The conference began with a talk by Shona Robison MSP, the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport who praised the work of Scottish Care in supporting front-line workers. She said that the Scottish Government support fair pay in the care home sector and encourage more communication between the care home sector and local government to make sure that older people spend less time in hospitals. This theme was also picked up by other speakers throughout the day who gave working examples of this in practice.

A Scottish Care representative announced the launch of the ‘Convention on the Rights of Residents in Care Homes’. This is a set of rights that they hope will be endorsed by the Scottish Government and all parties involved in the care home sector to give every individual a set of basic rights.

There was a wide range of speakers throughout the day and the recurring issues were;

  • Recruitment and retention of suitable staff is a major challenge (staff turnover of 25% per annum and 40% of new employees leave the care home sector after one year).
  • Wages of staff need to improve beyond the living wage, some care home workers are being paid less than supermarket employees!
  • Self-directed support models are being tested in some areas. This is where Local Authority payments are made to the individual resident who is then in charge of choosing how to spend it.

The exhibition was held during lunch with 77 stands displaying goods and services from a wide range of care home suppliers.

In summary, even though there are major challenges for the care home sector, especially in staff recruitment and funding, the day was very positive and highlighted examples of excellent care homes and initiatives. It also reminded us all that the most important people in all of this are the care home residents.