This week Jeremy Balfour MSP came to our Midlothian Visiting Service and caught up with Chief Executive Lucy Wren and Service Managers Nikki and Sam.
Jeremy heard about the ways our Midlothian and Edinburgh Visiting Services support people in his constituency.
Both services support people with a range of challenges in their lives. On any given day they can be supporting someone with learning difficulties to a social group, helping someone with experience in the justice system reintegrate into the community, or providing respite care to give an unpaid carer some time for themselves.
We reflected that staff provide this person-centred support because of the training and development that Carr Gomm gives to all staff. However the current adult social wage set by the Scottish Government of £10.90 fails to reflect the skills and expertise required as well as the value of social care to our society.
We also discussed how ethical commissioning and improvements to Self-Directed Support can help Carr Gomm provide innovative services which give choice and control to people we support. It would lead to more people being supported in their homes and prevent unnecessary hospital admissions.
Jeremy also got to meet our Midlothian Music Group, ‘Something to Believe In’, which was set up with fundraised money to bring people together to play, sing and dance together. They sounded fantastic as they practiced for the Midlothian Fundraiser evening on the 8th September.
Carr Gomm continues to engage MSPs from across the political divide on our work and the impact of third sector social care ahead of the parliamentary debates on the National Care Service.
We believe the people Carr Gomm supports do not receive broken services; we need better resourcing to ensure that everyone else can experience person-centred support which enables them to live their best possible life.
