Scotland’s neurological needs not yet being met

Sue Ryder’s Rewrite the Future campaign aims to improve care and support, says Elinor Jayne

0 Dee View is Scotland’s only purpose built neurological centre

Aneurological condition can affect anyone at any time – it does not discriminate and has the potential to devastate the lives of not only the affected person but their friends and family too.

We take pride in caring and fighting for people with neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease, Huntington’s disease and sudden brain injury such as stroke.

Last year, based on the findings of research into neurological care across Scotland, Sue Ryder launched our Rewrite the Future campaign to improve care and support for people with neurological conditions. Our research revealed that there is no reliable information locally or nationally on the number of people with neurological conditions in Scotland, where they live or what care they need.

Without such basic information it is impossible to plan services and be confident these are meeting the needs of people. As a result, and as our research showed, health boards and local authorities across Scotland don’t provide sufficient specialist services for people with neurological conditions.

This means families are left to navigate an unfamiliar and sometimes confusing care system with no guarantee that they’ll receive the specialist care and support they need.

This lack of specialist care across Scotland can lead to adults of all ages with neurological conditions being placed into older people’s care homes – entirely the wrong setting for their needs and further contributing to their social isolation.

The Scottish Government has responded to our cam- paign and is now working with the NHS to find ways to identify the number of people with neurological conditions across the country, to help support public bodies design specialist services to meet their needs. Not only that, the clinical standards on neurological services are now being reviewed in an attempt to improve care and support.

So, a year on from the launch of Rewrite the Future, and now that health and social care should be joined up via Health and Social Care Partnerships, we are set to reveal next month just how much progress has been made on the ground.

There’s no doubt there are examples of good work around the country but families are still subject to a postcode lottery. At Sue Ryder, we’re doing our part via our specialist neurological care centre in Aberdeen. Opened in 2003, Sue Ryder Dee View Court is Scotland’s only purpose built neurological centre and it plays a key role in providing expert and compassionate long-term care for people living with support needs, receiving referrals from across Scotland.

We are now raising £3.9 million to expand this facility to meet the demand for the care and support that we offer.

There is a clear need for specialist neurological care, not only in Aberdeen, but across Scotland. Our plans for expansion are ambitious, but we cannot do it alone. Now we need Scotland’s NHS and local authorities to work together to ensure that everyone in Scotland with a neurological condition has access to readily available specialist care and support so that they can lives their lives as fully as possible. Elinor Jayne is policy and public affairs manager at Sue Ryder