Hansard

I open the debate by acknowledging the huge commitment and support that is provided by Scotland’s estimated 650,000 carers and up to 100,000 young carers. Unpaid carers provide tremendous support for their families, friends and neighbours, so I will use the debate to set out what the Government is doing, along with our partners, to support carers and young carers.

We are now into the second year of implementation of the carers and young carers strategy, which we produced jointly with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. The strategy provides clear direction and gives impetus to the progress that we want to see over the next five years. Our aim is to ensure that carers are identified early and supported in a timely way so that they can be sustained in their caring role. With that aim in mind, we have implemented a number of measures and continue to work on more within the strategy.

Carers tell us that it is often the small things that can make a real difference—for example, a general practitioner giving a carer time and being sensitive to the impact that caring can have on them. In order to address that, we have been working with the Royal College of General Practitioners in Scotland and other partners to produce guidance for all GPs in Scotland on identifying and supporting carers and young carers. I was pleased to launch the guidance recently at a GP surgery in Dundee that has given very strong leadership in its commitment to identifying and working with carers. It was clear from the carers whom I spoke to on the day that that approach was an important part of supporting them in their caring role. We now intend to roll out the guidance across the country.

We have also been working with health boards to provide carers and young carers with more support, and through the carers information strategies we have provided some £14 million up to 2012. The resources are giving real impetus to the undertaking of carers assessments and the provision of information and advice, carer training, workforce development and support for carers’ health and wellbeing. A significant part of health board carers information strategy funding is going to carers centres and young carers projects for essential work, amounting to about £2 million in the current financial year.

Recently, I was pleased to hear at first hand from the staff and carers at the Princess Royal Trust for Carers greater Pollok carers centre about how the carer information strategy moneys allocated by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde will fund training and support for parents of children with autism. For the parents to whom I spoke on the day, that has made a very significant change in their caring situation.

Health boards, along with partners, are also taking forward workforce development programmes, because we know that a well-informed, trained, and skilled health and social care workforce is essential to the improvement of the lives of carers and young carers, and we expect boards to continue that work.

We recognise that carers are often concerned about having plans in place for an emergency that may arise, or for the future when they are no longer around. That is why we have funded Enable Scotland to work in partnership with other organisations on the issue of emergency planning to ensure that we make further progress in addressing that area. Enable has researched the provision of emergency planning that exists across Scotland and has held a national event to consider how emergency planning can be further embedded, particularly in carer assessments. We want to see further progress in this area once we have the final report from Enable.

I also hear a lot from carers about the importance of access to regular, personalised, flexible short breaks. Such breaks continue to be one of the most important ways that we can support carers and the people they care for. Timely interventions maintain carers’ capacity, reduce the need for paid service delivery to the cared-for person and keep carers healthy, reducing their own need for support. Most funding for short breaks will be provided through local authorities, and all local authorities have an on-going role in supporting such breaks.

In addition to local authority provision, we have provided further investment to the voluntary sector to provide short breaks. We provided £1 million last year and £1 million this year to Shared Care Scotland, which developed the short breaks fund with other national carers organisations. The fund has worked well: through it, 100 voluntary sector projects are supporting more than 6,000 carers, kinship carers and young carers to enjoy a break.

I want to challenge misinformation around the overall increase in respite that has been supported by the Scottish Government. Figures that we published in October show that provision of respite weeks Scotland-wide increased by 10,600 weeks between 2007-08 and 2010-11, thus exceeding our target. The concordat commitment is at a national level and did not include any requirement for respite provision to increase in every single council area. That said, I am of course disappointed that nine councils should deliver fewer respite weeks in 2010-11 than in 2007-08. No doubt, members here today will wish to pursue that with the local authorities concerned, which may be in their constituencies.

Our priority has been to present comparable figures for each council area over time. A couple of areas were in effect double-counting for some of but not all their respite provision. We went back to the councils concerned for revised calculations. The recalculated figures show that our target on respite weeks was still met.

The respite figures provide the best estimate of the change in respite provision in Scotland over the past three years, but we aim to improve the consistency of data among councils and will work on that over the coming year. However, I recognise that we can do more to support short breaks. Members will be pleased to know that I will launch a £2 million short breaks fund for disabled children and their families next week to assist families in getting access to short, flexible breaks.

We also recognise the need to identify and support black and minority ethnic carers in a culturally competent and sensitive way. The carers information strategy funding is helping to do just that. We have funded a minority ethnic carers organisation to produce a BME audit tool, which will be published shortly. It will assist the statutory and voluntary services in both planning and delivering support to BME carers.

I have already mentioned young carers several times, as many of the developments support both carers and young carers, but I want to refer to some specific developments for young carers. With partners, we are working with the education sector, the national health service and social work services to support young carers. Young carers will be identified in the school census from next year, which should give us a clearer understanding of the number of young carers in our schools and allow teachers to be more aware of their particular needs. We have also funded the Scottish young carers services alliance to produce the Eric and Tracy website and characters to help identify primary-age young carers. I will shortly launch a toolkit for use in primary schools across Scotland in order to take that forward.

In going forward, it is important that we continue to respond to issues highlighted by our young carers. Access to appropriate information from clinicians for the person whom they care for has been identified as a key issue that young carers would like to see addressed. As a result, we are funding six pilot areas for a young carers authorisation card. That is at an early stage and planning is still under way. However, NHS Dumfries and Galloway is likely to be the first area to launch the pilot early in the new year. We hope that the card will enable health professionals to better take account of young carers’ knowledge about the person whom they care for and to share appropriate medical information with them at given times.

We have funded the young carers festival for the past four years—I know that some members in the chamber today have visited it. It would be fair to say that the festival was a bit muddy this year, but it remained a good, fun occasion, with a special appearance by McFly. The festival is a fantastic event that allows young carers to take a break and simply to be young people. I know from the many young carers whom I have met in recent months that they greatly value the young carers festival and that they wish to see it continue. I confirm to members today that, pending Parliament’s approval of our budget, we will fund the festival in the coming year.

It is crucial that we do not address carers’ and young carers’ needs in isolation. The Government is pursuing a range of policies that carers and young carers can benefit from. Our policy on self-directed support, which will give individuals greater choice and control over their care, will benefit carers and the person for whom they are caring. Similarly, the Scottish strategy for autism, which I launched earlier this month with more than £13 million of new funding, is intended to improve the quality of life for individuals on the autistic spectrum and their families.

Given the importance of maintaining older people’s independence at home or in a homely setting, we have made the commitment that at least 20 per cent of the change fund will be dedicated to supporting carers of older people to continue in their caring role. That amounts to more than £40 million over a three-year period. That is a significant level of investment that will have a real impact.

I also want to provide some reassurance that this is an area in which we expect the additional resource not to replace the existing resource that is being provided by local authorities and health boards for carers services. The new guidance that has been issued on the matter makes that clear.