The Scottish National Care Service was supposed to 'go live' in 2025-26. However, serious concerns on governance, staffing and funding led to a rethink, renegotiation and reshaping of the proposal. It now faces a new target date of 2028-29. No staff transfers are now proposed, and a new National Care Service Board is to oversee reformed local integration authorities and the co-design of all aspects of structure and services delivery. So, what is the proposal as it now stands and what will it mean for care providers and consumers?
The Scottish Government’s National Care Service (Scotland) Bill was introduced in June of 2022. In January of 2024 it was still at Stage 1 of its parliamentary process. The Bill will imminently move to Stage 2 of its parliamentary passage – yet much detail of what is intended is still unclear. This conference is timed to explain, examine and foster discussion on the planned Scottish National Care Service. It aims to help everyone involved in Scottish care delivery to understand what was in the original Bill, how that has changed and what further developments may still be to come. It will explain the consequences of the Bill for current and future provision of care and health services. Finally, it provides an opportunity for stakeholders to inform discussions on the Bill, particularly as Parliament considers and amends it during Stage 2 deliberations.
The scope of the original Bill proposed a system which would be accountable to Ministers. It also saw earlier proposals grow to cover adult, child, justice, substance misuse and some mental health services. The latest Ministerial statements propose a new Scotland-wide National Care Service Board which will take policy, oversight and direction from Ministers but have legal and service accountability to councils, the NHS and Scottish Government. Local care and health integration authorities are no longer to be abolished, but instead to be reformed and made accountable to the National Care Service Board. There is now the longer term possibility, but not certainty, of addressing children's and justice services.
What therefore do you or your organisation need to understand about the Bill and the Scottish Government's intentions for it? How is Scottish Government thinking on the Bill continuing to evolve, how is the care sector reacting to these developments and where is this going to take us in care delivery? The First Minister described this initiative as ‘the most significant public service reform since the creation of the National Health Service’. It was intended to oversee the delivery of care, improvement of standards, support of unpaid carers and the training, pay and conditions of staff – but not to operate services. Will it still meet these ambitions?
How will the new Scottish National Care Service affect how services and structures are funded, led and delivered? What does it mean for the future provision of care in Scotland? What are the consequences for existing providers and staff? How will all organisations in the care system and the supply chain that supports it be affected? Most importantly, how will this affect outcomes in care quality for those receiving and delivering care?
This conference examines the development of the Bill to establish the Scottish National Care Service and discusses its potential impact in three broad themes:
Benefits of attending
Who should attend
This conference is relevant for anyone involved in the planning, organisation or delivery of care services in Scotland. This includes policy makers, care providers, care staff, care giver and care receiver representative groups, regulators, those managing or working in the fields of adult, child, justice, substance misuse and mental health services and health, care and third sector bodies responsible for the provision or commissioning of care services.
Examples of the types of individuals and organisations already booked to attend include Directors of Business and Operations and Service Delivery, Care, Service and Transformation Programme Managers, Policy and Campaigns Officers, Headteachers, Adult Carer and Quality and Compliance Leads. These come from across local government, further and higher education, schools, community councils, the third and private sectors.
CEO
Cyrenians
Interim Chief Executive
Scottish Social Services Council
Chief Executive
Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS)
Service User Representative
Angus Health and Social Care Partnership, Integration Joint Board
Chief Executive
CHAS
Chief Officer of Development
the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE)
Policy & Research Officer
Scottish Care
Ewan Aitken
CEO
Cyrenians
Ewan is CEO of Cyrenians, a charity challenging the causes and consequences of homelessness.
A former Convener of Education and Leader of Edinburgh City Council, and CoSLA spokesperson on Education, Ewan has over 30 years’ experience in the public and third sectors. He founded the National Prison Visitor Centre Steering Group, the Ripple Project, and two credit unions. He is a council member of the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce. Ewan is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, a member of the Ripple Project Board and the Promise Oversight Board, and a member of the Scottish Government's Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans Delivery Group and National Strategy for Economic Transition Delivery Board. He was a member of the CoSLA Commission on Strengthening Local Democracy and in 2018 he received the SCVO Charity Awards Leading Light Award.
Maree Allison
Interim Chief Executive
Scottish Social Services Council
Maree joined the SSSC in 2010 and was appointed Director of Regulation in 2015. Before joining the SSSC Maree was a litigation solicitor working in private practice. Maree is currently Acting CEO.
Rachel Cackett
Chief Executive
Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS)
Rachel Cackett is the Chief Executive of CCPS. She joined CCPS from Samaritans where she had worked as Executive Director for Scotland since January 2020. At Samaritans she worked with volunteers, staff, partners and people with lived experience to build the charity’s Scottish presence, secure a new self-harm strategy, and shape recommendations for suicidal crisis support.
Prior to joining Samaritans, Rachel worked in the Scottish health and care sector for 20 years with campaign and policy roles at Shelter, RVS and the RCN, where she led the organisation’s work on integration, NHS finance and safe staffing legislation.
Andrew Jack
Service User Representative
Angus Health and Social Care Partnership, Integration Joint Board
After retiring from a career in Electronic Engineering Design and Programme Management, Andrew Jack decided to volunteer with NHS Tayside Public Partners during which time he has been engaged on many local and national level health service activities as a lay member.
He has been a member of Angus HSCP IJB for 5 years and Chair of its Audit Committee for 2 years. He is also a member of the Strategic Planning group. Prior to that he served for 3 years as a member of Dundee HSCP IJB. Consequently, he has experience of strategic, operational and governance in both a health and social care setting, together with a good understanding of the constraints of budgetary, demographic and workforce pressures in the delivery of high quality, person centred and safe care.
As a past user of both health and social care services, he has a first-hand experience of the service user journey.
Finally, as an adviser with Dundee Citizens Advice for over 10 years, he has good understanding of the difficulties faced by members of the public, including those who are unrepresented, disadvantaged and in need of advocacy, when accessing and navigating public services.
Rami Okasha
Chief Executive
CHAS
Rami Okasha was appointed Chief Executive of CHAS in September 2019 and formally took up the role February 2020. As Chief Executive Rami is responsible for providing strategic leadership of the organisation, and for ensuring that CHAS meets its statutory and service obligations. In his role as Chief Executive, Rami places a particular emphasis on the continued delivery of high-quality specialist palliative care, service transformation and developing a positive workplace culture.
Throughout the pandemic, Rami has been committed to leading CHAS to build effective and enduring relationships with partners and support staff and volunteers to be resilient in the face of uncertainty.
Prior to taking up the role of Chief Executive, Rami was Director of Transformation and Innovation at CHAS. In this role, Rami successfully led the development of CHAS's new strategy Reaching Every Family 2020-2023 which includes ambitious plans to continue CHAS's mission to reach every family in Scotland through developing its people, growing the organisation and influencing its partners.
Prior to joining CHAS, Rami was Executive Director of Strategy and Improvement at the Care Inspectorate, Scotland's largest scrutiny and improvement body. There, he was responsible for leading the Care Inspectorate's improvement support activities across the care sector, and directed approaches to scrutiny methodology, intelligence, organisational development, corporate reporting, involving people who experience care in decisions, communications and policy development. He co-led the development of Scotland's Health and Social Care Standards, working with people who use and provide care to ensure these are outcomes-focused, based on human rights and wellbeing, and person-led.
Rami is also a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission's Scotland Committee and is responsible for advising the Commission on its work in Scotland.
Sara Redmond
Chief Officer of Development
the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE)
Sara is Chief Officer of Development at the ALLIANCE, responsible for leading and continuing to shape the vision of the organisation in partnership with the Chief Officer of Operations.
Sara is responsible for developing the strategic direction of the organisation, overseeing the ALLIANCE’s portfolio of programmes. Central to this is ensuring a strong voice for disabled people, people living with long term conditions and unpaid carers and opportunity to influence change based on their lived experiences.
Sara’s work involves working closely with ALLIANCE members, developing innovative partnerships that show how change can be achieved, and promoting the role of the third sector as a key innovator and partner in realising Scotland’s national health and wellbeing outcomes.
Since her time at the ALLIANCE Sara has had key policy roles in our health and social care integration and self management programmes.
Previously Sara has worked at Scottish Government as a researcher in the equalities and tackling poverty division and has worked in a number of frontline roles supporting people who have claimed asylum, survivors of sexual violence, and with people experiencing homelessness.
Gabrielle Scharlach
Policy & Research Officer
Scottish Care
Gabrielle Scharlach is a Policy & Research Officer at Scottish Care, leading on National Care Service initiatives and its co-design. Her unwavering commitment to human dignity ensures that the policies she shapes not only address immediate needs but also cultivate a lasting impact on societal well-being.
Before joining Scottish Care Gabrielle held a similar role in the United States, focusing on a diverse array of policy and legal research projects from health to foreign policy. Her specialization and commitment to human rights has been a consistent thread throughout her career, ensuring that policy initiatives are rooted in principles of service and equity. Her achievements include many authored and co-authored papers. Gabrielle holds an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Edinburgh and also graduated summa cum laude from Colorado State University with degrees in Global Politics & Policy and International Development.
