Hansard

I begin, as is customary, by congratulating my friend Bruce Crawford on securing the debate, which allows members to highlight the report and the work of Sue Ryder home care staff across Scotland.

In my constituency of Angus South, we are lucky to have a Sue Ryder team that offers expert care for people living with neurological conditions. Most areas in Scotland do not yet have access to such a specialist service. I want to highlight the tailored care that Sue Ryder offers service users in Angus, not simply to blow the trumpet of my constituency but in the hope that that care points the way for the wider care provider community in supporting people with neurological conditions and allowing them to live as independently as possible.

Since the provision of home care started its move from Angus Council to external organisations, Sue Ryder has become one of the largest home care providers in the area. The team, which is based in Arbroath, currently operates with a staff of 47, who deliver 1,300 hours of care a week for more than 200 service users. As well as providing day-to-day home care, Sue Ryder staff in Angus offer help with end-of-life care, provide respite to carers and offer short-term rehabilitation programmes so that people can leave hospital sooner and continue their recovery at home.

To be honest, I usually cringe when I hear the phrase “person centred”. First, it represents the jargon that pervades the service element of the public sector. Secondly, on the ground, it is all too often deployed simply to mask the delivery to individuals of the care that they can be given rather than the care that their circumstances require or that they want. However, it seems to me that the Angus Sue Ryder team reaches beyond the standard care process and provides users with a tailored service that truly focuses on their overall quality of life.

The report urges healthcare professionals to focus on the experience of living with a condition and how that informs the person’s whole life, rather than on the neurological disease. That means listening to them and considering them as a person rather than simply treating them as a patient with a condition. The Angus team’s desire to put that approach into practice is demonstrated by how it has organised its Christmas party this Thursday. As we are all aware, life with a debilitating neurological condition can be lonely and isolating, especially at this time of year. The party—in which local school kids take part—is an opportunity to bring service users together in a social setting, in the company of the familiar faces of the Sue Ryder home care team.

That approach to building relationships outside working hours is not confined to annual gatherings. For example, the Angus team recently took an elderly service user out of her home to see the town’s Christmas lights, and on another occasion a member of staff accompanied a lady to a family member’s wedding, thereby allowing her to take part in that special day with the support of a specialist carer by her side. To me, that sounds like care that is genuinely “person centred”—in other words, care that is tailored to the needs and wishes of the individual.

The care that is provided by the Sue Ryder team in Angus is greatly valued by those who receive it, and it is frequently rated by the Care Inspectorate as “excellent”. In the inspectorate’s most report on the team, one service user described the staff as “superb” and acknowledged that some staff “go above and beyond”.

Only last year, alongside Sue Ryder colleagues in Stirling, with whom they made up the Scottish home care team, representatives from Angus scooped the accolades of team of the year and overall winner at the Sue Ryder UK awards, in recognition of the Scottish team’s commitment, resilience and excellent care.

Those of my constituents who live with a neurological condition have access to top-class personal home care from the Sue Ryder team. As we seek to make the Scottish Government’s healthcare quality strategy a reality by 2020, I hope that it is seen as a role model for services elsewhere in Scotland.