A health and social care partnership (HSCP) is reviewing all support provided to people in their own homes as it faces a surge in requests for care and ‘significant’ staff shortages.

Stirling and Clackmannanshire HSCP chief officer Annemargaret Black said the partnership was under “enormous” pressure and needed to ensure “those with the greatest needs are supported and people are not left at risk”.

The HSCP says any change would be discussed with the person who receives support.

It is one of the latest areas to reduce support, following similar moves in Edinburgh and the Lothians.

A survey of third sector care providers across Scotland found nine in ten were finding recruitment of care workers more difficult.

The Scottish government’s social care minister has poured cold water on the idea of a one-off bonus payment to attract and retain staff.

In a report for a meeting of the Stirling and Clackmannanshire Integration Joint Board (IJB), Ms Black said: ‘There are significant capacity issues in adult social care services as a result of people leaving to take up jobs in other areas of the economy.

‘…Due to the service capacity issues, locally we have recently asked care providers to risk assess people’s packages of care with a view to reducing the number of visits where it is safe to do so.’

Demand for care at home is up by 20% compared to July 2020, data from Clackmannanshire reveals.

Meeting documents suggest the pandemic is the ‘core driver’ of this increase, which is normally around 4% a year.

At yesterday’s meeting, IJB members raised concerns that any assessments should be done by the council rather than providers.

They were told providers and the council would work together to identify people whose care could be safely reduced.

Ms Black said: “We simply do not have the resource to go out and review everybody’s package of care with the resources that we’ve got…we do need to work hand in glove with the providers.”

Councillor Dave Clark went on to say the “core” problem was the IJB being “considerably underfunded”:

“The system hasn’t been giving Annemargaret and her colleagues sufficient resources to provide the service that is needed…I’m not suggesting that money should be thrown at IJBs but we’re certainly given plenty of evidence that we don’t have enough to do the job that’s asked of us.”

Read more: Care packages unmet in staffing crisis; Care workers swayed by NHS recruitment campaign; Call for new bonus to avert care staffing crisis

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