The “Christie Commission” or to give it its Sunday name: “Report on the Future Delivery of Public Services by the Commission chaired by Dr Campbell Christie”, was published today.
One recommendation is that our health and care services are integrated. I will write about this in more detail in my next article on Scotland’s care industry.
The report can be found here.
Is there a crisis in how we care for the elderly and other at risk groups in Scotland? The recent media coverage suggests yes but I suspect even as I start a series of articles on this subject that any conclusions I draw will be more complicated than a simple yes or no.
I am in my mid forties. My Mum is in her early seventies as are my wife’s parents. How we care for our parents is an issue that my generation cannot ignore. It is not just how we care for the elderly that is making news headlines. The scenes shown in the recent Panorama programme on Winterbourne View care home were sickening.
Southern Cross
Southern Cross has rarely been out of the news recently. Southern Cross, which operates across the UK, announced it is reducing its rent payments and cannot afford to meet its annual rental costs of £230million. The background to this is the reorganisation of the business a few years before the current economic difficulties. The recession has caused Southern Cross, and others, real problems. I will look at this issue in more detail when I look at how we fund elderly care. I will also look at the charge levied at Southern Cross that “they are just like the bankers”, i.e. they award massive bonuses when things are going well but, when things go wrong, demand public funding.
Winterbourne View care home, near Bristol
The Winterbourne View care home, near Bristol, was featured in a BBCPanorama programme. The scenes shown in the programme caused revulsion and outrage. Police in Bristol have arrested a number of people after the secret filming by Panorama found a pattern of serious abuse at this residential hospital. Winterbourne View treated people with learning disabilities and autism. The hospital’s owners, Castlebeck, have apologised unreservedly and suspended 13 employees. The hospital has now been closed. Even though this is an English care home the issues raised cannot be ignored here in Scotland. How robust is our own inspection process? Do we listen to whistle blowers? Does the buck truly stop somewhere?
Elsie Inglis care home, Edinburgh
The Elsie Inglis private nursing home in Edinburgh has been forced to close down. The owners of the Elsie Inglis Nursing Home volunteered to de-register the business after it became clear they would not meet a deadline for improvements ordered by Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland. SCSWIS said it had: “very serious concerns about the quality of care” at the home. There is also a police investigation into the death of two residents of the care home.
Ninewells Hospital, Dundee
Ninewells hospital, Dundee, was severely criticised in a report by the Mental Welfare Commission over the care of an 80-year-old woman with dementia. Before her death, the woman was given dozens of sedative doses over 16 days in ways the Mental Welfare Commission deemed distressing and unnecessary. Ninewells Hospital was not named in the report and its identity only became public when the media and politicians started asking questions about the report.
Erskine care home, Edinburgh
Erskine’s Edinburgh care home received a critical report from SCSWIS. It was also reported that the Chief Executive Officer of Erskine, Major Jim Panton has resigned. A spokesman for the care home said that the resignation was not connected to the critical report. The inspection report found that prescription drugs had not been administered properly and that fluid and food intakes had not been recorded.
The last three matters may in fact point to the fact that our system of inspection is robust. I will though look further at this issue in a later article.
Some facts and figures
There are over 900 care homes in Scotland. Approximately 170 are owned by our 32 Councils, 240 by charities and just over 500 by private operators.
Southern Cross has 98 homes in Scotland, Four Seasons has 49 and BUPA 30.
Approximately half of Scottish homes are run by sole traders.
Some 39,150 people reside in Scottish care homes.
77% of care home residents pay for their care.
Scottish Councils pay £550 per week to private providers to look after old people with estates worth less than £22,000.
Councils spend approximately £800 per week per resident in their own homes.
Someone occupying a non-specialist hospital bed costs the Health Board approximately £1,500 a week. An acute bed costs approximately £2,800 per week.
Future articles
Over the next few weeks I will look at a number of the issues mentioned above in greater detail. This will include how we fund elderly care, the quality of care given, inspection and whistle blowing issues, the role to be played by the private, public and third sectors, the debate on merging our health and care sectors and the options for taking control of some or all of a person’s affairs.
If you have any questions on this issue or simply want to make a comment please either contact me or use the “comment” option below.
James Aitken
Legal Knowledge Scotland
The Financial Times reported today that HM Treasury will not overhaul the way it assesses the tax take on private finance initiative deals even though their ownership is increasingly moving offshore.
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has been told that ultimate ownership of 90 of the 700 existing PFI projects has moved offshore.
Justine Greening, economic secretary to HM Treasury, did though admit in a Commons debate last week that there was little information available about the way PFI ownership was being sold on and traded in secondary markets.
Plans to use a £420,000 bequest to convert a substandard care home into a healthy living centre, complete with spa and gym, for pensioners in the Galashiels area have been ditched following a three-month public consultation.
The report from the Southern Reporter can be found here.
The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), the umbrella body for Scotland’s 32 local authorities has warned that uncertainty over the economy and changes to the welfare system could reverse years of improving council tax collection rates.
Council tax collection rates rose again in the past year, up by 0.2% on the previous 12 months, despite more than £1 billion having gone unpaid since the charge began 18 years ago.
For 2010-11, £1.86bn was paid by March 31 from the total bill of £1.97bn.
Differences remain among local authorities, with taxpayers in Glasgow only paying 92.3% last year compared with a 97.6% total in Orkney.
Dundee recorded the highest increase with a collection improvement of 91.4% to 93% over the past year.The average percentage of bills collected annually across Scotland’s 32 councils increased from about 87.2% in 1998-99 to 94.6%.
The article in the Herald newspaper can be found here.
Outer House case in which a tenant (Ralph Lauren) of premises on Ingram Street in Glasgow sought to prevent the landlord (the pension fund) from letting a neighbouring unit (Unit 6) to a hairdressing salon on the basis of an obligation contained in a back letter.
The back letter granted by the pension fund provided:
“We shall not grant first lettings of that one of the Commercial Units (as defined in the Lease) known as Unit 6, situated to the north of that one of the Commercial Units let as at the date hereof to All Saints Retail Ltd, to retailers other than high quality fashion retailers as are approved by you (such approval not to be unreasonably withheld or delayed).”
Ralph Lauren sought an interim interdict on the basis that the hairdressing salon was not a high quality fashion retailer. On the other hand, the pension fund argued that, in terms of the back letter, as the hairdressing salon was not a retailer, Ralph Lauren’s permission was not required.
Ralph Lauren contended that the pension fund’s interpretation would permit the landlord to let the premises to anyone who did not sell goods which they argued was an absurd consequence given the context in which the undertaking had been given. As a result, they urged that back letter should be construed in a commercially sensible, rather than a purely literal, way.
However, Lord Glennie agreed with the pension fund’s arguments and found that the letter did not restrict the pension fund with regard to lettings to non-retailers (noting that it was “nigh impossible” to describe a hairdresser as a retailer). Whilst it was “permissible to do some slight violence to the language of a clause in a contract where a literal construction would defeat what is objectively the intention of the parties to it”, there was no basis for applying that approach in this case. There was nothing to suggest that the parties had intended a restriction on all lettings other than high quality fashion retailers. There was no evidence to suggest that a high quality fashion retailer such as Ralph Lauren would consider themselves to be prejudiced by the letting of a neighbouring unit to, for example, a restaurant or a cafe. If they had wished to prevent such a letting it would have been easy to address it in the undertaking.
Lord Glennie came to the conclusion that Ralph Lauren had not shown that they had a prima face case and refused the motion for interim interdict although leave to reclaim was granted.
The full judgement is available from Scottish Courts here.
All of our property and conveyancing case summaries are contained in the LKS Property and Conveyancing Casebook here.
A residential hospital for vulnerable adults near Bristol where alleged abuse was secretly filmed by the BBC Panorama programme is to close on Friday.
Castlebeck, which runs Winterbourne View, said the hospital would close on 24 June when the last patients would be transferred to alternative services.
The BBC news report can be found here.
Delivering Sustainable Flood Risk Management, 15 June 2011
Guidance complementing the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009. It sets out statutory guidance to SEPA, local authorities and Scottish Water on fulfilling their responsibilities under the Act.
The full document is available from the Scottish Government website here
Police are trying to establish the circumstances surrounding the death of a Glasgow man whose mother took him to a Swiss clinic to die.
Helen Cowie told BBC Scotland’s Call Kaye show she helped her son Robert, 33, commit suicide after he was left paralysed from the neck down.
Mrs Cowie, of Cardonald, Glasgow, said her son went to Dignitas in October and “had a very peaceful ending”.
The report from BBC News can be found here.
Last December the Scottish Parliament rejected plans to give terminally ill people the right to choose when to die. Independent MSP Margo MacDonald’s End of Life Assistance Bill aimed to make it legal for someone to seek help to end their life. The Bill was defeated by 85 votes to 16 with two abstentions.
