Public performance reports

Community care is the term used to describe the care and support arrangements that are available to support the needs of our most vulnerable people, whether by age, disability, or mental capacity. Social Work Resources provide and commission a range of services that ensure service users are supported to remain in their homes. Support available ranges from care at home, meals at home, equipment adaptations and occupational therapy, assistive technology along with a number of community living services including the community mental health teams, care and support service, residential care home, and day care services.

Local councils have a duty under the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 to assess a person's community care needs and decide whether to arrange any services. Any assistance should be based on an assessment of the person's care needs and should take into account their preferences.

The Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 provides the legislative framework for the integration of health and social care in Scotland. It requires Local Authorities and Health Boards to integrate adult health and social care services. The Integrated Authority is South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership (SLHSCP). The Partnership’s activity is overseen by the Integration Joint Board (IJB) The partnership has now produced its 2022-2025 Strategic Commissioning Plan and an Annual Report which sets out its intentions for the future of communities in South Lanarkshire.

The Social Care (Self Directed Support ) (Scotland) Act 2013 necessitates whole scale change in the way in which assessment and care management and support planning is developed alongside service users and carers offering them choice and control over what care services and support they opt for from (1) Direct Payment (2) Individual Service Fund (3) Council Managed Support or (4) mixture of the previous three. Self-directed Support (SDS) allows people needing support to choose how their support needs will be met. This indicator shows the spend on adults as a % of total adult social work spend.

The Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 makes provisions for unpaid carers, including the identification of carer’s needs for support through adult support plans and young carers statements; the provision of support to carers; the enabling of carer involvement in certain services; the preparation of local carer strategies; and the establishment of information and advice services for carers.

The Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 play an important role in guiding how some services are delivered.

The Care at Home service plays a pivotal role in supporting people to live independently and safely at home.

South Lanarkshire Care at Home staff provide over 17,000 visits to service users per week. The South Lanarkshire service currently employs around 1,500 staff.

The Home Assessment team introduces a new approach that provides support to individuals to return home with appropriate supports following an admission to hospital and to support others to remain at home as independently as possible.

The Home Assessment team co-ordinate and promote a reablement and rehabilitation approach. Through this, we aim to maximise the opportunities and outcomes for individuals and support people to live independently at home with choice and control.

This short-term reablement and rehabilitation service, for a period of up to 6 weeks, focuses on maximising the independence and abilities of service users. Individuals with ongoing support needs following the assessment period will be referred and supported by an alternative internal or commissioned Care at Home service.

The Care at Home Service has embarked on a programme of modernisation to enable it to better respond to service demand and to the increasingly complex needs of service users. Work undertaken within the service as part of the redesign include the following:

• The establishment of scheduling and response teams that operate between 6.30am and 11pm every day of the year to ensure support to staff and service users is aligned to periods when services are delivered.
• The transfer of the out of hours support function for the service from Emergency Social Work Services (ESWS) to Care at Home.
• The implementation of a new electronic scheduling system across all localities.
• Communication enhanced with Home Carer through the implementation of new technology.
• Investment in the staffing infrastructure within the service and the redesign of coordination roles within the service to reflect changing responsibilities with a focus on service user and staff support and quality assurance.
• The establishment of specific roles focussed on the enhancing the assessment and care management function within the service.
• Recruitment campaigns for Home Carers launched to attract new recruits into the service.

SW01 - Home Care costs per hour for people aged 65 or over

What this means

This indicator calculates home care costs per hour for people aged 65 or over. Home care is delivered in the client’s own home (including sheltered housing) and may include personal care, domestic help, laundry services, shopping services, and care attendant schemes.

Gross Expenditure is defined by the Local Financial Returns guidance for LFR03: Social Work. The LGBF figure is calculated using the following components of LFR 02 under Adult Social Care: Gross Expenditure adjusted for LFR purposes – Support Services + Revenue Contributions to Capital.

Why this matters

Home Care is one of the largest expenditures in Social Work and as such is an important indicator. With the increasing shift in the balance of care to the community, any efficiency from councils could be usefully shared.

Our performance and how we compare

How we have performed in improving this public service

Home Care costs per hour for people aged 65 or over in South Lanarkshire increased in 2023-24 compared to 2022-23, with ranking dropping from 13 to 18. South Lanarkshire had the second highest cost per hour amongst the comparator Family Group, however, costs in the Family Group vary significantly.

The number of Home Care Hours used within the calculation for this indicator is inclusive of services provided by different staff-groups or purchased from different agencies. The costs of such services are included whether they are provided by the local authority, purchased from another local authority, or purchased from private or voluntary sector providers.

Internally, the outcome of a job evaluation within the Care at Home service resulted in increased employee costs following increased salaries for frontline staff.

Costs have increased as a result of a number of factors. Nationally, inflation and increased cost of living have impacted more generally on costs. In addition, there were substantial increases to the living wage which resulted in increased rates for Care at Home providers.

SW04b - Percentage of adults supported at home who agree that their services and support had an impact on improving or maintaining their quality of life.

What this means

The Health and Care Experience (HACE) survey asks about peoples’ experiences of accessing and using their GP Practice and other local healthcare services; receiving care, support and help with everyday living; and caring responsibilities. Detailed definition and guidance can be found in the HACE survey Technical Report Sampling is done within GP practice lists, to aim for sufficient responses to achieve a reasonably reliable result for each practice. The reliability of the result depends on the number of questionnaires returned and the variability of the responses. The sample size that was calculated for each practice is based on the minimum number of responses that would be required to achieve an estimate of a percentage that has a 95 per cent confidence interval with width +/- 8 percentage points, sampled from a finite population.

Results at all levels of reporting are weighted to reduce potential bias by making the results more representative of the population. Eligible people are identified using an extract from the Community Health Index (CHI) database provided to Public Health Scotland. People eligible to be sampled for the survey were those registered to a Scottish GP practice and were aged 17 or over on the date the sampling procedure commenced. Patients with non-Scottish postcodes are excluded from the sampling frame. An initial letter asks respondents to complete the survey online but also include a helpline number. Reminder letters including a paper version of the questionnaire are also sent out, to boost response rates.

Why this matters

This indicator reflects the aggregate impact of local person-centred work to improve personal outcomes, focusing on what is important for individuals’ quality of life. It emphasises the increasing focus on personalisation of services, including the use of personal outcomes approaches.

Our performance and how we compare

How we have performed in improving this public service

Performance for this indicator declined in South Lanarkshire in 2023-24, resulting in national ranking decreasing from 11 to 30. Nationally, there has been an overall decline in performance. These results are drawn from the Health and Care Experience (HACE) survey which asks about people’s experiences of accessing and using their GP practice and other local health and social care services; receiving care, support and help with everyday living; and caring responsibilities. It is important to note that respondents of the survey are selected from a sample of people registered with GPs and a proportion are not likely to be Social Work Service Users. Participation in the HACE survey decreased in South Lanarkshire from 25% in 2021-22 (7,457 responses from 29,748 forms sent out) to 21% in 2023-24 (5,552 responses from 26,824 forms sent out).

South Lanarkshire University Health and Social Care Partnership (SLUHSCP) began working with Care Opinion in early 2023, officially launching in December 2023. Care Opinion is an independent platform that allows service users to share feedback on their health and social care experiences directly with services. In Q4 2023-24, 82% of stories received from service users were rated completely positive. Services have access to the feedback received on Care Opinion and the ability to collaborate with service users regarding service changes and improvements.

SW04c - Percentage of adults supported at home who agree that they are supported to live as independently as possible

What this means

The Health and Care Experience (HACE) survey asks about peoples’ experiences of accessing and using their GP Practice and other local healthcare services; receiving care, support and help with everyday living; and caring responsibilities. Detailed definition and guidance can be found in the HACE survey Technical Report Sampling is done within GP practice lists, to aim for sufficient responses to achieve a reasonably reliable result for each practice. The reliability of the result depends on the number of questionnaires returned and the variability of the responses. The sample size that was calculated for each practice is based on the minimum number of responses that would be required to achieve an estimate of a percentage that has a 95 per cent confidence interval with width +/- 8 percentage points, sampled from a finite population.

Results at all levels of reporting are weighted to reduce potential bias by making the results more representative of the population. Eligible people are identified using an extract from the Community Health Index (CHI) database provided to Public Health Scotland. People eligible to be sampled for the survey were those registered to a Scottish GP practice and were aged 17 or over on the date the sampling procedure commenced. Patients with non-Scottish postcodes are excluded from the sampling frame. An initial letter asks respondents to complete the survey online but also include a helpline number. Reminder letters including a paper version of the questionnaire are also sent out, to boost response rates.

Why this matters

This indicator reflects whether people who receive support feel that it helps them maintain their independence. Health and Social Care Partnerships need to provide community based services that focus on enablement, prevention and anticipatory care that mitigate increasing dependence on care and support.

Our performance and how we compare

How we have performed in improving this public service

Nationally, performance for this indicator declined in 2023-24. South Lanarkshire also reports a decline in performance and a resulting drop in ranking from 9 to 29. These results are drawn from the Health and Care Experience (HACE) survey which asks about people’s experiences of accessing and using their GP practice and other local health and social care services; receiving care, support and help with everyday living; and caring responsibilities. It is important to note that respondents of the survey are selected from a sample of people registered with GPs and a proportion are not likely to be Social Work Service Users. Participation in the HACE survey decreased in South Lanarkshire from 25% in 2021-22 (7,457 responses from 29,748 forms sent out) to 21% in 2023-24 (5,552 responses from 26,824 forms sent out).

South Lanarkshire University Health and Social Care Partnership (SLUHSCP) began working with Care Opinion in early 2023, officially launching in December 2023. Care Opinion is an independent platform that allows service users to share feedback on their health and social care experiences directly with services. In Q4 2023-24, 82% of stories received from service users were rated completely positive. Services have access to the feedback received on Care Opinion and the ability to collaborate with service users regarding service changes and improvements.

SW04d - Percentage of adults supported at home who agree that they had a say in how their help, care or support was provided

What this means

The Health and Care Experience (HACE) survey asks about peoples’ experiences of accessing and using their GP Practice and other local healthcare services; receiving care, support and help with everyday living; and caring responsibilities. Detailed definition and guidance can be found in the HACE survey Technical Report Sampling is done within GP practice lists, to aim for sufficient responses to achieve a reasonably reliable result for each practice. The reliability of the result depends on the number of questionnaires returned and the variability of the responses. The sample size that was calculated for each practice is based on the minimum number of responses that would be required to achieve an estimate of a percentage that has a 95 per cent confidence interval with width +/- 8 percentage points, sampled from a finite population.

Results at all levels of reporting are weighted to reduce potential bias by making the results more representative of the population. Eligible people are identified using an extract from the Community Health Index (CHI) database provided to Public Health Scotland. People eligible to be sampled for the survey were those registered to a Scottish GP practice and were aged 17 or over on the date the sampling procedure commenced. Patients with non-Scottish postcodes are excluded from the sampling frame. An initial letter asks respondents to complete the survey online but also include a helpline number.

Why this matters

This indicator reflects whether people receiving support feel that they have choice and control over how that support is provided. The increasing use of Self Directed Support should mean that more people feel that they have more control over the type of support they receive.

Our performance and how we compare

How we have performed in improving this public service

South Lanarkshire reports a decline in performance in 2023-24, however, ranking has been unaffected at 27. Nationally there has also been a decline in performance. These results are drawn from the Health and Care Experience (HACE) survey which asks about people’s experiences of accessing and using their GP practice and other local health and social care services; receiving care, support and help with everyday living; and caring responsibilities. It is important to note that respondents of the survey are selected from a sample of people registered with GPs and a proportion are not likely to be Social Work Service Users. Participation in the HACE survey decreased in South Lanarkshire from 25% in 2021-22 (7,457 responses from 29,748 forms sent out) to 21% in 2023-24 (5,552 responses from 26,824 forms sent out).

South Lanarkshire University Health and Social Care Partnership (SLUHSCP) began working with Care Opinion in early 2023, officially launching in December 2023. Care Opinion is an independent platform that allows service users to share feedback on their health and social care experiences directly with services. In Q4 2023-24, 82% of stories received from service users were rated completely positive. Services have access to the feedback received on Care Opinion and the ability to collaborate with service users regarding service changes and improvements.

The Care Inspectorate is the independent scrutiny and improvement body for care services in Scotland. They make sure people receive high-quality care and ensure that services promote and protect their rights. All our care services are registered and inspected by the Care Inspectorate and you can view individual reports on their website. They currently inspect five themes.

Please see the table below for current grades for Care at Home Services within South Lanarkshire:

Grades Guide: 1. Unsatisfactory   2. Weak   3. Adequate   4. Good   5. Very Good  6. Excellent

 Look at our short video on Supporting your Independence and our video illustrating Care at Home Services in South Lanarkshire.

Blantyre LIFE opened in 2023 to provide state of the art care and support to the wider population of South Lanarkshire. Alongside technology enabled homes and a Technology Enabled Care (TEC) Zone, access to transitional care provides individuals with short-term support focusing on rehabilitation and self-care following a period of ill health or crisis. Adopting this approach encourages and enables service users to rebuild their confidence allowing them to continue to self-care and learn or re-learn the skills needed to support their goal to return home.

Care homes for older people provide suitably qualified and trained staff look after service users over a 24-hour period. These teams of staff are individually registered with the Scottish Social Services Council. This is the regulatory body for care staff. Our homes are registered with the Care Inspectorate who are the regulatory body for the service provision. Our homes are inspected by this independent body. Grades are awarded with, supporting reports being held on the Care Inspectorates public website (see table below).

Our care home staff provide service users with all aspects of daily living. We aim to maintain as much independence as possible and, encourage families and friends to continue to be involved and maintain their relationships while their loved one lives in our home. 

Our staff are on hand to meet the care needs of each service user. This may include providing personal care, such as assistance with bathing, washing, dressing, going to the toilet, and taking medication. Nutritional meals are provided with snacks and drinks being available throughout the day and night.

Each of our care homes have enhanced contracts with their local GP surgery. This ensures access to the GP advanced nurse practitioners and Community Nursing when required.

We ensure that all service users are registered with the local dentist, unless they prefer to remain with their own dentist. This will be discussed at the point of admission.

 Each SLC care home has WIFI to allow service users to maintain contact with loved ones as well as supporting the use of laptops, phones, and other technology that we all use in our daily lives.

We have a hairdresser that visits each care home on a weekly basis, or service users can use their own hairdresser if they prefer.

The council has three care homes, providing 192 placements with a further 37 independent care home providers, with 2291 registered places.

Please see the table below for current grades for Care Homes within South Lanarkshire:

Grades Guide: 1. Unsatisfactory  2. Weak  3. Adequate  4. Good   5. Very Good  6. Excellent

Follow the link to the list of the council’s Care homes. Social Work Resources also offers advice on choosing a care home and care home options and you can watch our video illustrating Residential care in South Lanarkshire.

A review of our adult and older people day services for was undertaken during the period 2019-2022 involving extensive consultation with service users, family and carers, employees and other stakeholders. The outcome of the review was presented to the IJB on 20 June 2023 focusing on the need for future service to provide:

• Individualised support
• Reablement focus to support independence
• Intensive support for those with the most complex needs and high levels of dependence

The review also highlighted challenges with some of the day service buildings which were no longer suitable for people with complex disability. A decision was taken by the Integration Joint Board (IJB) on 18 October 2023 to continue to operate day services from a reduced number of 10 facilities across South Lanarkshire. 

Our day services aim to provide a flexible, responsive and supportive service during the day using specialist building based environments and the local community. We aim to:-

• support people to remain living well in their own communities
• encourage people to explore new experiences and maintain existing skills and interests 
• promote a wider and more integrated use of local communities by people who use services
• ensure that people who use services have the opportunity to achieve their own personal outcomes
• support people to develop and maintain social connectedness

More information can be found in our Annual Performance Spotlights.

We provide supported living to adults with learning disabilities. This support is provided in the adult’s own home. Adults are first assessed by their social worker and a self-directed support package is agreed. This could be anything from a few hours per week up to 24 hours per day. This would be determined by the assessment of needs and the agreement of what kind of care and support required by the adult.

The care and support team are individually registered with the Scottish Social Services Council. This is the regulatory body for care staff.

Please see the table below for current grades for the Care and Support Service:

Demand for alert alarms and telecare peripherals continues to increase year on year with 2302 requests received between April 2023 to January 2024, more than the 2276 requests received in total for 2022-23. 34% of requests received were categorised as urgent (hospital or integrated care discharges; adult support and protection; end of life care). After screening and approval process have been completed by the TEC team, urgent requests are installed within 1 to 2 working days. The team aim to install urgent hospital discharge requests within 24 hours from request approval. Standard priority requests are installed within 5 to 10 working days from the point of approval.

Blantyre LIFE is South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership’s award-winning care campus situated in Blantyre, South Lanarkshire. This first of this kind of development in Scotland offers the latest in technology enabled care, high standard accessible housing and health and social care services all with the aim of achieving the best outcomes for service users and tenants. This blueprint for future technology enhanced care and supports offers:

• The TEC zone co-designed by the TEC Team and Glasgow Science Centre. This exciting innovation space allows visitors to explore and experience how technology can enable anyone to live safely, independently, and well at home. The TEC team deliver technology enable care training to the 3rd sector, health and social care staff from Blantyre LIFE
• 20 technology enabled homes including the latest digital community alert alarms, smart speaker and smart home control and reminders. Each home has an individually tailored video doorbell, focusing on keeping in touch with loved ones
• The TEC Team are working with the national TEC programme, software designers and other partnerships to design a smart speaker single device management platform. This platform will be tested in Blantyre LIFE’s integrated care facility as well as with some community alarm service users and will enable service users to stay informed, connected, and independent, while enabling devices to be developed and customised with built in privacy and security

Carers are people who provide unpaid care, without whom the demands on the council’s Community Care Services would greatly increase. It is estimated that there are approximately 40,000 carers of all ages across the South Lanarkshire area. Carers’ support is provided in a variety of ways. Further information is available on the Carers pages of our website whilst South Lanarkshire’s Carers' Strategy outlines how carers are currently supported and areas for future development.

SW04e - Percentage of carers who feel supported in their caring role

What this means

The Health and Care Experience (HACE) survey asks about peoples’ experiences of accessing and using their GP Practice and other local healthcare services; receiving care, support and help with everyday living; and caring responsibilities. Detailed definition and guidance can be found in the HACE survey Technical Report Sampling is done within GP practice lists, to aim for sufficient responses to achieve a reasonably reliable result for each practice. The reliability of the result depends on the number of questionnaires returned and the variability of the responses. The sample size that was calculated for each practice is based on the minimum number of responses that would be required to achieve an estimate of a percentage that has a 95 per cent confidence interval with width +/- 8 percentage points, sampled from a finite population.

Results at all levels of reporting are weighted to reduce potential bias by making the results more representative of the population. Eligible people are identified using an extract from the Community Health Index (CHI) database provided to Public Health Scotland. People eligible to be sampled for the survey were those registered to a Scottish GP practice and were aged 17 or over on the date the sampling procedure commenced. Patients with non-Scottish postcodes are excluded from the sampling frame. An initial letter asks respondents to complete the survey online but also include a helpline number. 

Why this matters

This indicator illustrates the proportion of carers who feel sufficiently supported to continue in their role. Health and social care services need to be planned and delivered with a strong focus on the wellbeing of carers so that they can sustain the important caring responsibilities they have in the community.

Our performance and how we compare

How we have performed in improving this public service

South Lanarkshire reports a slight decline in performance and a resulting drop in ranking from 20 to 27. Nationally however, performance has increased from in 2023-24. These results are drawn from the Health and Care Experience (HACE) survey which asks about people’s experiences of accessing and using their GP practice and other local health and social care services; receiving care, support and help with everyday living; and caring responsibilities. It is important to note that respondents of the survey are selected from a sample of people registered with GPs and a proportion are not likely to be Social Work Service Users. Participation in the HACE survey decreased in South Lanarkshire from 25% in 2021-22 (7,457 responses from 29,748 forms sent out) to 21% in 2023-24 (5,552 responses from 26,824 forms sent out).

Contrary to the HACE results, Lanarkshire Carers successfully achieved Carers Trust Excellence for Carers Award in 2023 following rigorous assessment of their services Pan-Lanarkshire. Additionally, there was a 20% increase in the number of new carers identified by Lanarkshire Carers in 2023-24 compared to the previous year, this assists more people being able to access support than would otherwise be the case.

 Lanarkshire Carers is commissioned by South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership to provide carer engagement, empowerment, and representation services along with dedicated information, advice, and a range of direct support to unpaid carers.

For more information about the support that Lanarkshire Carers provides, visit their website.

Action for Children is commissioned to support young carers. They raise awareness, identify and provide direct support to children and young people who look after or help to look after someone in their family.

For more information or to make a referral visit the Action for Children website.

The Money Matters Advice Service Welfare Rights Officers have supported Carers to access a range of Carer related benefits: Carers Allowance, Universal Credit Carers, Carers Allowance Supplement (Scotland) and claim benefits as follows:

* 893 translates to £2,500 per client. Payments of £250 per household through Financial Wellbeing Support Fund (FWSF) in 2022 increased numbers of carers supported in that year.

Roll out of other changes in benefits has resulted in delays in decision-making and is having a knock on effect on the uptake of Carer Benefits. Adult Disability Payment and Child Disability Payment by the Scottish Social Security Agency, as both benefits are still taking longer to process than child DLA and PIP.

The Health and Social Care Partnership continues to support carers in their caring role and also provide support for the cared-for person. If a carer has eligible support needs, they may be offered a budget to support the sustainability of carer support. This will mostly be to support a complete break from caring where this has been identified at the assessment.

We will take forward the following key areas for improvement:

• continue to implement the Supporting Your Independence (SYI) approach by increasing the number of suitable referrals to home care going through the SYI intervention process
• continue to maintain grades of “good” and above for external inspections of our registered care services
• continue to engage and consult with stakeholders in relation to the improvement and re-design of day services for adults and older people
• take forward any actions resulting from multi-agency inspections of older peoples services carried out by the Care Inspectorate and Health Improvement Scotland
• continue to support Carers to continue in their role as a carer

Resource Plans are prepared each year by all council Resources to outline the key developments they intend to take forward in the year. In addition to the continuing demands presented by Covid-19, there are several factors that present specific challenges to Social Work Resources in relation to the demand for key service provision. In the coming year Social Work Resources will take forward all necessary actions, where reasonable and appropriate, to mitigate or reduce the Resource's exposure to these risks. More information on performance and actions relating to community care can be found in the Social Work Resource Plan, the Chief Social Work Officer Report, and the IJB Annual Performance Report.

Twice a year, performance reports are presented to council committees on progress against the Resource Plans. In addition, reports detailing progress against the Council Plan Connect Priorities are prepared. See Quarter 2 (September) and Quarter 4 (March - year end) for performance reports for further information.

More information on our outcomes can be found in the Council Plan Connect and also the Annual Performance Spotlights.

Local Government Benchmarking Framework (LGBF) allows councils to work together, to use performance information in a way which will help understand variations, share knowledge, expertise and good practice, with a view to making improvements. For more information and links relating to this framework go to the 'Benchmarking' paragraph on the Improvement and how we compare page on our website.

The information contained within this report reflects the position based on the data available at the time of publication (March 2025).