The Move to Trindlemoss: A Synthesis of the Evidence: Final Report to North Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership

North Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership (NAHSCP) has recently consolidated its Day Services provision into a new purposely designed, centrally located, Day Opportunities facility at Trindlemoss, Irvine. This facility offers significant opportunities for the growth and development of the provision of Day Services such as greater community integration for service users and more opportunities for staff interaction and professional development. The establishment of Trindlemoss reflects the commitment of NAHSCP to realising policy recommendations in a meaningful way to meet the needs and aspirations of people with a learning disability, their carers, and the community. To support the transition process an extensive programme of consultation was conducted with staff, service users, and the wider community supported by experts from the University of the West of Scotland (UWS). This report outlines the findings from this consultation process and synthesises findings and implications from the extensive range of consultation events ran by NAHSCP, UWS and the Scottish Health Council (SHC).
Researchers from UWS conducted individual interviews with six service users along with two focus groups (one with carers and one with staff) to understand perceptions and experiences of current service provision and expectations for future provision in the new facility. All data was then analysed to identify key themes. Analysis of the views of staff, service users and their carers revealed a number of common themes that were grouped into four mains areas: positive perceptions, negative perceptions, future expectations and future concerns. From this it was the possible to highlight a number of key ‘take home messages’, namely, the importance of staff, community engagement and social activities, physical environmental aspects of Trindlemoss and the importance of being kept informed.
Overall, the findings from the UWS research demonstrate a degree of overlap with the findings of the SHC Carer Survey, NAHSCP consultation events and Aberdeenshire Council’s consultation exercise on the development of its day service provision. The report concludes with a recognition of the challenges associated with delivering Day Service provision within a post-COVID-19 environment along with suggestions for future research and practice.