ELDERLY people in the Scottish Borders are being failed by the partnership set up to administer their care, a report has said.
The Care Inspectorate have identified failings throughout important services and have demanded Scottish Borders Council and the local health board bring in significant improvements.
A report into health and social services for the elderly scrutinised nine areas over a period of several months between the end of last year and the beginning of 2017.
It gave three key areas - leadership, planning and deliver - "weak" ratings, with five others said to be "adequate" and only one "good".
However, the local authority has hit back at the criticism, saying it was "difficult to understand" why services had been rated so poorly.
Inspectors were particularly concerned about the level of care given to vulnerable and at-risk adults, saying that that processes to identify and protect them needed to improve "significantly"
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Officials also said there were lengthy waits for people to have their needs assessed, and people often had to wait for services to be provided even after their level of care was decided.
The report also found that staff were unsure of their roles due to a failure of "vision" from above, while restructuring had created uncertainty across areas including mental health services for older adults.
Karen Reid, chief executive of the Care Inspectorate said: “We expect to see people who experience care much more closely involved in designing changes to the health and social care services they will use, with clear pathways for accessing care and eligibility criteria that are consistently and appropriately applied.
“Waiting times for getting support must be minimised. This requires greater focus on early intervention, coupled with services working together to help older people live in their own homes for longer and avoid being admitted to hospital where that is not necessary.
“We expect to see progress accelerate and require the partnership to develop a detailed action plan which will improve the experience of people across the Borders.”
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Robbie Pearson, Chief Executive of Healthcare Improvement Scotland, added: “Prioritised action will be required across services to ensure that older people and their carers are protected and their needs met and their wellbeing improved.
“We will be discussing with the partnership how it intends to make the necessary improvements and what support will be required. We will require an action plan detailing how the partnership will take the necessary actions."
Tracey Logan, Chief Executive Scottish Borders Council, added: “Overall, we find it difficult to understand why the excellent work of our staff hasn’t been as positively reflected as it might have been with three out of nine areas being graded as weak.
"However we are pleased that despite this the report graded our impact on the community as ‘good’.
“We have recently undergone a Community Learning and Development inspection and our annual audit from Audit Scotland. Early feedback suggests that both of these audits are very positive.
“We shall continue to work with the inspectors to finalise our action plan, which is the consolidation of a range of plans which the Partnership has in place, and assist them as they revisit our services over the next year.”
Jane Davidson, Chief Executive NHS Borders, said: “We were pleased to hear that when speaking to older people and their families, inspectors found that they valued the services they received which were usually of a good quality.
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"People felt listened to and supported by staff to make choices about their care and support with their circumstances and personal outcomes improving as a result of the support provided for them, particularly in terms of being able to live where they wanted and stay as well as they could."
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