Interim National Care Service Advisory Board: Advice to Scottish Ministers and Council Leaders - Getting it Right for Everyone

Introduction

Getting it Right for Everyone (GIRFE) is the practice model shaping how public services in Scotland are designed and delivered around people. Built around 5 principles, GIRFE supports individuals from young adulthood through to end-of-life care. It supports the development of a joined-up care and support plan by bringing together:

• the person
• their family
• their carers
• service providers

Individual plans like this consider all needs across different services to achieve the best possible outcomes.

The interim NCS Advisory Board (interim Board) recognises that the GIRFE model supports the ambitions of the Service Renewal Framework by:

• ensuring service continuity and consistency across life stages
• promoting early intervention
• embedding inter-agency collaboration and person-led planning

Based on the experience of several health and social care partnerships (HSCPs) in testing and embedding GIRFE, the interim Board wishes to support efforts to fully embed GIRFE across:

• health
• social care
• social work
• related public services

The interim Board thinks that embedding the GIRFE approach throughout Scotland is a key priority. The interim Board believes that GIRFE provides a blueprint for a more resilient, equitable, and responsive health and social care system.

The interim Board recognises that GIRFE applies across the whole system of adult health, care and support services. GIRFE is not a single-service model. It is a cross-cutting adult practice model, designed to shape how all relevant services work together around the individual. The GIRFE approach underpins the effective, person-led delivery of all health and social care services, including:

• drugs and alcohol
• services for older people
• social care in prisons

It is key to making progress with the Board’s other priorities, in particular:

• Self-directed support: GIRFE principles highlight the importance of making it easier for people to get the support they need, in the way which works best for their whole life and wider wellbeing. GIRFE ensures that people:
• have the information they need to make decisions
• are supported to understand the options available to them
• are trusted to know what is right for them
• Coming Home: GIRFE takes a person-led approach that focuses on what matters most to people. It can reduce duplication, improve efficiency and ensure timely, holistic support and better outcomes for people by supporting collaboration of those delivering support, whatever the kind of help needed. These principles are essential to those on the Coming Home Dynamic Support Register. Different services must work together to ensure that those people’s individual needs and choices are understood, and can be supported.

The interim Board’s advice is intended to ensure that GIRFE is promoted, enabled and embedded fully across health, social care, social work and related public services. The advice is based on the experience of health and social care partnerships which have considered some of the conditions, including leadership and culture, necessary for embedding GIRFE across health and social care services.