Dear all
Today, we have published the findings from our review of Adult Social Care statistics in Scotland. We have also submitted a summary of the report to the Scottish Parliament Health and Sport Committee’s social care inquiry. I would like to thank you and your colleagues for their valuable input to this review.
Our report outlines various issues affecting the quality and value of adult social care statistics in Scotland that need to be addressed. Throughout our work on this review it has been clear that you all have a strong understanding of these issues and share many of the concerns that users raised with us. I would like to commend the work you have been doing to bring about positive improvements to adult social care data and statistics.
We all recognise that a major transformation of adult social care data and statistics will be needed to fully meet users’ needs and this will require more fundamental action. We have made recommendations in three strategic areas to support this:
- Clearer responsibility for analytical leadership is required to scope and deliver local and national level improvements.
- The imbalance in resources currently available for health service and social care statistics needs to be addressed.
- Data systems need investment to improve the quality of existing datasets and to identify ways to capture new data to fill many gaps that users have identified.
We have asked you to work together to develop an integrated health and social care statistics action plan by July 2020 in response to the recommendations in this report. We appreciate that addressing these resourcing and investment recommendations will require commitments from senior leaders in your organisations and others with an interest in this sector. We will continue to use our voice to support your work and to advocate for transformational change of adult social care statistics in Scotland.
I am copying this letter to Angela Leitch, Chief Executive, Public Health Scotland and Roger Halliday, Chief Statistician and Data Officer, Scottish Government.
Yours sincerely
Ed Humpherson
Director General for Regulation
Related Links:
Adult Social Care Statistics in Scotland Report (February 2020)
Letter from Ed Humperson to Lewis Macdonald MSP, Convenor Health and Sport Committee (February 2020)