25th June 2010

The event in Birmingham yesterday was excellent, a great deal of emphasis on dementia care which is as it should be I think.

I’ve had a meeting here at the office with our staff about our annual conference on 20 and 21 October this morning. This year for the first time we are splitting up the Conference into two quite separate days. The first day was what we were concentrating on this morning. On that day we will be holding two separate conferences, one about dementia care and one for providers of services to adults with a learning disability.

It was the conference about dementia care that we sorted out today. We have managed to agree the conference programme and now need to hope that everyone we have invited to speak is able to attend. We have already had expressions of interest from as far away as America.

I am away from the office now for just over a week but if anything significant happens I will manage to publish an update.

Have a good weekend.

Sheila

24th June 2010

I have driven to Birmingham today for the National Care Congress. This afternoon I will be chairing the final session of the conference. I have been able to spend the morning constructively engaged. I have visited a number of exhibitors talking about new products and I have also been able to talk to Cheryl at length about our plans for the summer.

More a out that later!

22nd June 2010

I am off to a meeting in 1 hour with the new Minister. Not just me of course but with 20 other people. It should be an excellent event scheduled to last for 3 hours and I ought to come away with a much better impression of where Social Care sits within the new Government agenda .

18th June 2010

I have spoken at 2 conferences over the last week. The first was the West Yorkshire SC Partnership Conference where I spoke to more than 100 providers about the future of social care for providers.

Last night I spoke at a seminar organised by Barclays Bank alongside a speaker from CQC. This was a good event with a large number of providers and others such as accountants and solicitors present.

It made me realise we must look to the future now. There is an ever increasing number of people needing care and we must look to deliver a modern service.

But... as I said last night, Government - both local and national - and the regulator cannot continue to expect more and more services unless they have money to pay.

Vetting and Barring Scheme Announcement

I wasn’t surprised to hear that the Home Office had decided to delay (?) the introduction of the Vetting and Barring Scheme but it was certainly very late in the day.

Many members will want to know what the arrangements are now with the CRB and which form etc. to use. All information is in the CRB section of the National Care Association Website.

http://www.nationalcareassociation.org.uk/crb.asp

The big question is “is the end of the Independent Safeguarding Authority?” For once I have no idea!

National Care Association and Boots.

We are delighted to announce that Boots and National Care Association have agreed to continue their partnership.

Boots will be speaking at the Dementia Conference on 20^th October 2010 – click below….. and watch this space for more information.

http://www.nationalcareassociation.org.uk/conference.asp

Survey of providers of Learning Disabilities services

I am really grateful to all those providers of services to people with Learning Disabilities for returning our Survey. If you haven’t can you please try to complete and return to us as soon as possible. If you haven’t received a copy of the survey please follow the link below:
http://www.nationalcareassociation.org.uk/


We are going to analysis responses in mid-June. We will share the results initially with all those who responded and we will use the report in discussions with Government. We will formally launch the report at our Learning Disabilities Conference, 20th October 2010 in London. http://www.nationalcareassociation.org.uk/conference.asp