Agenda and minutes

1.1       The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting, in particular the Principal Petitioner, Mr Sean Elliot (on behalf of his mother, Mrs Madge Elliot), supported by Mrs Shirley Brown.  The meeting was held via Microsoft Teams and livestreamed and the Chairman gave details of the protocols for the meeting.

1.2       Petitions Procedure

            There had been circulated copies of an extract from the Audit and Scrutiny Committee Petitions procedure.  The Chairman outlined the process and in particular the procedure which would be followed during the meeting and the options available to members of the Committee once they had considered all the information before them. 

1.3       Re-open Teviot Day Service

            There had been circulated copies of a petition entitled “Re-Open Teviot Day Service”, which had received well over 1,000 signatures.  There had also been circulated copies of a briefing note by the Director Social Work & Practice in response to the petition.     In the statement within the petition, it was explained that Teviot Day Service(TDS) provided an essential resource for mainly older people, many with dementia related illnesses, enabling them to socialise with peers, engage in activities and generally improve their quality of life.  It also provided essential respite for unpaid carers, enabling them to have time to themselves and confidence that their loved ones were being cared for by professionally trained Day Service staff.  In March 2019, Scottish Borders Council had announced a plan to decommission day services throughout the Borders based on a localised, small pilot in Eyemouth.  Following a campaign  by TDS Support Group, the then Chief Officer Health & Social Care Integration publicly stated in February 2020 that there was no suitable alternative to TDS in Hawick, a pre-requisite to the Council’s authority to decommission a day service and that TDS would remain open.  Like everything else, Covid had resulted in TDS being suspended, but the Council reneged on its commitment and was refusing to re-open TDS. Council senior officers had used Covid to deliberately engineer a situation where Social Workers and Health Workers could not refer people to TDS because it was not open, thereby artificially suppressing the demand.  The Council was ignoring the needs of our older people and their unpaid carers, as well as ignoring the advice of their own Social Workers NHS Community Health Workers, and Third Sector Organisations such as Borders Carers Centre.  The petitioners demanded that the Council re-opened Teviot Day Service without further delay.  

1.4       The Chairman invited Mr Elliot, Lead Petitioner, to present the petition on behalf of his mother.  In support of the petition statement, Mr Elliot advised that the petition had been lodged on behalf of the most vulnerable group, many of whom suffered from dementia with a medium to high care need which covered medication and assistance.  These people were not able to make decisions on their own but did not require residential care as they were able to live in their own homes with unpaid carers.  There was a need to consider the carers who bore the burden  ...  view the full minutes text for item 1.