The planning of health and social care services across East Renfrewshire is improving, inspectors have said.

A joint inspection which focused on the strategic planning of services provided by the East Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) was carried out from Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the Care Inspectorate between April and June this year.

The HSCP is a partnership between the NHS and East Renfrewshire Council.

As well as offering community health and care services, including support for patients with conditions such as dementia, it provides criminal justice social work and social care services for children.

Now a report published by inspectors has awarded a rating of ‘good’ to three quality indicators they considered – the partnership’s performance; strategic planning and commissioning; and leadership and direction.

“There was clear evidence that the partnership was improving its health and social services for adults,” the report states.

“It had made commendable progress with technology-enabled care, whereby people were supported by communication technology to keep well and maintain their independence.

“It worked positively with third sector partners to develop innovative person-centred services that used community assets to deliver improved health outcomes for people who used services and unpaid carers.”

However, inspectors also stressed that the HSCP “needed to do more” to engage productively with the independent sector.

The report identifies five areas for further development, including planning, meaningfully involving stakeholders and ensuring effective operational leadership.

Robbie Pearson, chief executive of Healthcare Improvement Scotland, added: “Our joint inspection found there was clear evidence the partnership was improving its health and social care services for adults.

“We saw a culture of collaborative leadership, sound governance and a strong commitment to integration. Moreover, the partnership’s performance in post-diagnostic support for patients with dementia was found to be positive.

“Care at home is a critical service that delivers vital personal care to many older people and other individuals. This issue constitutes a considerable risk for the partnership and progress needs to be made to implement its improvement plan.”