The Dynamic Support Register

The Scottish Government has been looking into the care and support offered to people with learning disabilities and complex care needs in Scotland. Some of this work has been to help understand how many people are in hospital, or are away from where they normally live, to make sure that support is delivered in the place that is best for the person, and to stop people being stuck in a situation that is not best for them.

It has always been challenging to have all this information in one place as some information is held by NHS, some by Councils, and some by other care providers. NHS Shetland and the SIC have been working collaboratively to bring their information together to make sure nobody is missed. The “Dynamic Support Register” (DSR) was launched in May 2023 as one of the key recommendations of the ‘Coming Home Implementation Report’, and is about bringing together this information about adults with learning disabilities who are cared for away from home, and to make sure that is reviewed regularly to know if it is the best option for them. Currently Shetland has a very low level of people on the Register, meaning Shetland services, communities and families are generally managing to look after people in the place that is best for them.

In Shetland, Adult Services, Primary Care, Community Nursing and Social Work Management Teams have been working closely together around the complexities of sharing data and understanding the local needs of our local population with learning disabilities and complex care needs. While nationally this has been focussed primarily on people living within institutions and away from home, the team locally have taken the opportunity to improve understanding of support needs and build better systems of appropriate information and intelligence sharing across services which will support improved experience of transitions, and better responses to changing need. This better understanding will be used to inform service planning over the coming year.

The improved information gathering nationally is being used to increase the visibility of local and national data by Public Health Scotland, low level and to support work on the ‘Coming Home Implementation Report’.