Figure 1 - Care Areas 1997-2002 (hours) - Awaited

The scheme is in a sound financial position generating a surplus of �4,550 against an expenditure of almost �94,000. Highland Council and Highland Health Board provided 60% of our income through grant funding and 20% arose from direct purchase by Social Work Services. The remaining 20% - the highest level ever - came from the BreakAway Project, scheme fundraising and the continuing generosity of Caithnessians through donations.

The role of Crossroads as a provider in delivering Care in the Community has changed from the late 1980�s when the Caithness scheme started. Seen originally as basically a �day sitting service� to provide some small respite to the carer, Crossroads over the past 14 years - both locally and nationally - has become a provider of domiciliary care not only to carers but also to those living alone. The care support is delivered at all times of the day and night and demands a high degree of dedication by the Crossroads staff with appropriate training in the required skills. Administering the service has also meant new office procedures being introduced.

Recent initiatives in the care provision field will offer the scheme new opportunities to expand our support to individual carers and those requiring care. Firstly, changes to the Direct Payment Regulation will increase the number of people who can take advantage of purchasing services to meet their care needs instead of the local authority arranging services for them. This increases the choice and control people have over meeting their needs, increasing independence and aiding social inclusion. Secondly, the Supporting People programme will come into force in April 2003. This new programme will transfer the responsibility and funding for services and other existing streams to local authorities to be applied at local level on the basis of individual need. The introduction of these opportunities will require an even more professional and efficient approach by the scheme.

April 2002 sees the introduction of the National Care Standards and a requirement for Crossroads to be registered with the National Care Commission from April 2003. This will involve inspection of our management and care standards. The past year saw the scheme achieving the quality assurance standard (CROQAS) set by Crossroads (Scotland). This award, together with our IIP status, stands the scheme in good stead for the obvious challenges which lie ahead in the rapidly changing field of community care.

Take up of Crossroads services in the Wick area has always been lower than in the Thurso area. To provide a better opportunity for carers and also those organisations that are looking to provide carer support, the scheme has arranged with Caithness Deaf Care to share their premises in Wick from April 2002. The office will be devoted to Crossroads activities for two days per week. There will be a separate telephone number.

Once again we have invited all Carers/clients, Care Attendants, Members, GPs, District Nurses and those members of the Community Care services to our Annual General Meeting on 14 May 2002 but have taken the decision that only those requesting copies of the Annual Report and Audited Accounts will be issued with copies. We have however, arranged that this report and accounts be available to all through the Caithness.org web site at no cost to us and this information has been passed to all those invited.

I would like to thank the Management Committee for their support over the year. Without however the dedication, experience and training of the Coordinator and Care Attendants, there would be no Crossroads in Caithness.

MANAGEMENT OF THE SCHEME
The directors elected at the 4th annual general meeting (Mr Owen Pugh, Mr Keith Muir, Mrs Eileen Spearing, Mr Gavin Pope and Mrs Cathy Wratten) continued to serve throughout the year.

We were delighted to welcome one new member to the Management Committee (- Miss Gillian Godsman, Care Manager, Thurso Caithness, Social Work Services. Ms Katrina MacNab of Wick Caithness Citizens Advice Bureau joined us in February. Mrs Maggie Page continued as Care Co-ordinator.

Appendix 1 shows the members of the Management Committee the AGM in May 2001 to April 2002 who served over the year and their attendance at committee meetings is shown in Appendix 2.

Services

Subject to individual care assessment.

The scheme was asked by SWS in January 2002 to provide extra weekend/overnight care for the last three months of the financial year and was allocated �8,000 from the Carers Strategy funding - this money did not become availablewas not made available to the scheme until March 2002 and therefore permission has been received to and it has been agreed by SWS to carry this forward to the next financial year. The schemecarry this forward to the next financial year. did however provide an additional 254 hours of respiteweekend/overnight care care over and above our normal level in the short time available before the end of the financial year.

Purchased Care
In addition to the carer support provided by the annual grants from HC SWS and HHB, the scheme is invited to supply carer support over that which we can provide within our grant funding. Purchased care has primarily been for �tuck ins� though we have supplied day care on a regular basis. There has been very little increase in hours provided (2169 hrs in 2001/2002 against 2115 hours in 2000/2001) and the number of clients receiving care in this category has remained the same.

The scheme has also supplied respite care requested and purchased by the carer or the person being cared for using allowances from statutory bodies identified for that purpose eg Independent Living Fund (ILF). One additional carer has purchased care in 2001/2002.

At present Crossroads does not charge for its carer support. However, should a carer wish to enter into a private contract with the scheme, terms can be arranged. This contract of necessity must reflect at present the full costs, ie not subsidised by statutory body funding, though negotiations are in hand with SWS/HHB to allow overheads to be covered out of grant funding.

Grants from Charitable Trusts
The scheme continued to enjoy support from the Tudor Trust, Camelot Foundation and Scottish Business Achievements Award Trust to our Breakaway Project and from the Scottish Business Achievements Award Trust for the supply and maintenance of mobile phones for Care Attendants use in an emergency.

It is the intention to seek funding for a new office to be set up in Wick on a one year sub lease from Caithness Deaf Care. This office will be manned initially for two half days/week and a separate telephone number (with the Wick code of 01955) will be installed. It is hoped that this will encourage Carers in the Wick area to call in and discuss their needs with the Coordinator. A case will be made for funding the lease of the office, the installation of the telephone line and possibly a laptop computer so that the Coordinator can continue to work when away from the company office.

Donations
Donations totalling �7,147 have been received during the year. The scheme is extremely grateful to all who have supported us in this way. All monies received are directed to providing respite care to carers in Caithness. Appendix 3 gives details of donations above �200 received from organisations. Individual donations have been too numerous to mention and we do not wish to embarrass the donors by publication of their names.

Fund Raising
Our Summer Coffee Morning held in Thurso Town Hall in June raised �718. Thanks are extended to all who supported us on the day either by selling tickets, baking for the stall etc or donating raffle prizes.

Once again, Management Committee members and Care Attendants sold programmes for the Halkirk Highland Games which brought in �653.

The scheme benefited by �642 from an �Open Garden Day� held by the Chairman in August and thanks are extended to him and his wife for all the work they put in on that day.

In September. Care Attendants and members of the Management Committee turned out at the local Co-operative store to bag pack. We managed to take in �558.

In February the scheme put on a second �Ready, Steady, Cook Evening� at the North Highland College which was a great success. Many thanks go to Anne Frew of the College and the catering students who arranged the evening on our behalf. Our thanks also go to Kevin Sutherland of the Station Hotel, Thurso, and Stuart Jarvie of Crieff Hydro who travelled especially from his base in appalling weather. Also thanks must be recorded to Mr Philip Coghill who compered the evening. As the restaurant seating was restricted to 60, income from ticket sales was limited but together with donations a total of �337 was raised. In terms of PR this was once again a brilliant success.

Special thanks must be extended again to Mr Tommy Souter of Thurso for the gift of a mountain bike given as a raffle prize in our Annual Draw (�Two Good to Miss�) in February 2002. With this gift, and many others from local businesses and organisations, we were able to offer 10 good prizes and we would like to thank all donors. This draw raffle raised �1,244. The draw took place at the Ready Steady Cook Evening on 6th February.

We have been able to hold one extra Coffee Morning this year which was held in January which brought in �211. Despite bitterly cold weather, people turned out to support us once again. Our thanks go to all who helped in fund raising this year and in particular those who always bake for our sales table.

PROJECTS
BreakAway
Over the year 438 hours of BreakAway care have been given to carers and clients. This time has been used for a number of purposes. One carer used her time to have a long weekend away with an old friend and she kindly wrote up her experience for us when she came back. One gentleman went south to visit his very elderly mother while we at Crossroads set up a care package to look after his wife who suffers from Dementia. This gentleman had been toying with the idea of going south for some considerable time before he eventually used the service. He was delighted with the care his wife received. One couple have used the service to meet up with friends who were coming to stay in Inverness for a week. A combination of care between the Longberrie Unit in Wick and Crossroads enabled them to have three days away.

Following a full risk assessment conducted by the Coordinator prior to the first visit, the scheme was delighted to be able to give one client the opportunity to go to the local cinema on two occasions in the year, the first time for many years that she had been to the cinema. Two care attendants were on duty at all times to ensure her safety.

In March the BreakAway funding was used in conjunction with the money we received from the Carers Strategy, which is to be used specifically for weekends and overnights, to give a carer a long week-end away. The carer had not been able to go away for some time as the client becomes so agitated when taken into care or hospital that the carer has been called back to come and take the client home. Although this was a complex care package there were no problems we could not cope with.

The carers who use the service use it sparingly as they are reluctant to get more than their fair share of services;- others have no use for the service at all do not take up the opportunity at all. There are some carers who need and like to get away and others who are content with their short breaks every week. Therefore some carers receive what would seem to be more BreakAway services than others are but this is what they need to help themidentify as the help needed for them to cope with their caring role when others do not.

Emergency Phones
Each care attendant continues to be provided with a mobile phone for use in emergency situations, such as bad weather, vehicle breakdown etc. At the present tome some phone batteries are no longer holding their charge and replacement batteries are no longer available. This will necessitate the replacement of some phones. This project continues to be funded by a Trust SBAAT at the present time.

IIP REVALIDATION
Mrs Angela Lewis and Mr Gavin Pope represented the Scheme at Ackergill Towers to collect the plaque to mark revalidation of our Investment in People (IIP) award first awarded in 1998.

CROQAS (Crossroads Quality Assurance System)
A Quality Assurance is necessary to ensure that all 51 Scottish schemes are working towards the same goals and standards.system provides a programme which sets standards in a number of areas against which the scheme performance can be judged. CROQAS consists of 15 standards to 3 levels and has been derived from a national office standard called Piqaso from which standards have been adapted to fit the work of Crossroads. Work was completed to bring our office procedures, paperwork, general management, policies and ethics up to the 1st level of standards required by Crossroads (Scotland) in 6 main areas by June 2001. Following an audit of all 15 standards in May 2001 by the Area Development Officer (ADO) and further auditing by Crossroads (Scotland) Care Services Manager, we were presented with the CROQAS certificate by Lady Elgin (Crossroads Scotland�s Patron) in all 15 standards. We were one of only six schemes in Scotland to achieve this level ahead of time. The photograph below shows Mrs Cathy Wratten (who ram-rodded the work on behalf of the Caithness scheme) receiving the certificate from Lady Elgin.

The scheme has also completed an internal audit inon Coordinator and Care Attendant Training,. with Office Procedures, Finance and Provision of Services audits are well in hand. The latter audit is still awaiting the finalised National Care Standards for Care in the Home which was scheduled for publication in December 2001. Recommendations from these audits are discussed at Management Committee Meetings and implemented if aas appropriate.

Staffing
The scheme currently employs 156 fully trained care attendants. During the year two Care Attendants resigned and we recruited three more, two of whom are now presently undergoing training.

To release more of the Co-ordinator's time to care coordination, carer assessment and client visits, a part time Admin Assistant was recruited in late November 2000 to cover primarily the payroll and statistics in the office. She left in January 2001 for employment offering more hours. Following a further advertisement the post was filled in March 2001 but again this lady left us in November for the same reason. The position has now been filled (March 2002) with the Admin Assistant working 8 hours per week with an extra 8 hours in the first week of the calendar month to complete Purchased Care Invoices. The Admin Assistant now covers all bill paying and banking, donations (letters of thanks/receipts), photocopying, filing, timesheet entering, statistics for SWS and Crossroads (Scotland).

Training & Communications
Care Attendants:
As part of a regular training/supervisory function, care attendants meet with the co-ordinator on a regular monthly basis. Due to adverse weather conditions over the winter months, some meetings had to be cancelled but regular contact with Care Attendants was maintained over the phone. Topics covered in the last 12 months have included:

Coordinator:
The Coordinator, and her Deputy and Admin Assistant spent 1860 hours attending meetings and offsite training sessions this year, one hour less than the previous year. . Coordinator training included:

The Management Committee, Co-ordinator and , Care Attendants and Management Committee meet once a year informally but following the Inhouse Training Day, it was decided to meet that Management Committee representatives should meet with Care Attendants (but without the Coordinator) on two further occasions twice a each year. The first of these meetings was held in February and points raised by Care Attendants werehave been taken on board by the Management Committee.

Liaison
Caithness (Crossroads) keeps in close touch with other organisations providing carer support, such as the Social Work Services, MacMillan Nursing, Marie Curie as well as other Crossroads Schemes in Scotland.

The Co-ordinators of the 8 Highland Crossroads Schemes now meet quarterly and are joined by the Chairpersons twice a year to discuss experiences and innovations in carer support.

The Crossroads (ScotlandHighland Schemes) Annual Conference was held in Tullyallan Fort William hosted by the Lochaber scheme in April and was attended by the Chairman members of the Management Committee, and CCoordinator and Care Attendants.

The Chairman and Coordinator attended the Annual Crossroads Scottish Conference at Tulliallan in September..

The Co-ordinator continues to represent Crossroads (Caithness) at the following meetings whenever possible:

Frequency

Quarterly

The co-ordinator continues to attend client case conference meetings when invited by the Social Work Services or Health Services.

Referrals
Of the 38 new referrals supported by the scheme (Appendix 4), 9 referrals were made by SWS (an increase of 2 from the previous year). Referral by carers themselves amounted to 15. Referrals from Health Services dropped from 11 to 10 this year. Appendix 5 shows the client groups within the new referrals.

Appendix 6 shows the age of both clients and carers supported by the scheme.

At the beginning of the year the scheme had 72 carer/clients and ended with 71 clients on the books. Of these 71 client/carers, 48 receive regular respite care hours, 21 on a flexible basis and 2 are not receiving care at the present time.

At 31 March 2002, we have no waiting list. We currently support 8 people who are living on their own with no carer in the area and a further 7 who have carers living locally but not with them.

Discontinued Care
During the year, 39 cares were discontinued.

Health & Safety
Two minor incidents to care attendants were reported over the year in the course of their duties - none required treatment.

SCHEME STATISTICS
Respite Hours
Total respite care hours provided by Care Attendants was 83158133 hours against 69307118 hours in 2000/01 - an increase of ??17%. Appendix 7 shows the number of care hours provided by the scheme and mileage involved for 2001/2002.

Mainstream hours increased totalled 3493 hours against 3174 hours provided in the previous year [??10% increase]. Dementia hours totalled 1779 against 1388 last year [28% increase] whilst SWS Purchased care hours showed a slight increase (?%) from 2115 the previous year to 2169 compared with 2115 hrs hours. 438 hours of respite care were given against the Breakaway Project - (an increase of ?70% (see Page 6 on �BreakAway�). Training accounted for 183 hours. From January, SWS asked for Carer Strategy money to be devoted to overnight and weekend care - 254 hours were provided.

Figure 1 shows the hours to care areas over the period 1997/2002.

Respite Mileage
Delivering care for Mainstream, Dementia, Social Work Services Purchased Care, and the Break Away and Trainingservice Care Attendants travelled 40,51732,557 miles compared to 36,6918,732 miles in the previous year (??10% increase).

Co-ordination and Scheme Management
The Co-ordinator, and her deputy worked a total of 1,905 hours with admin assistance of 270 hours - 2,175 hours total for the whole period compared to 2,028 hours in the previous year. The Co-ordinator and her deputy travelled 3,083 miles compared to 3,134 miles in 2000/01. This is shown in Appendix 7.

The SLA direct grant from Highland Council (SWS) was for �43,4428,818, a ??2% inflation increase over 2000/01. The Highland Health Board SLA grant edwas �29,80414,882. , a slight increase over inflation. Total grant income was �58,662.

The Highland Council SWS Purchased Care SLA care hour rate remained awas increased tot �7.42/hr with no change in the transport mileage rate of 27.8p/mile after the first 4 miles. Purchased Care purchased by SWS amounted to �18,822. support over the year remained much the same as the previous year (�19,781.39) with an income of �19,037.21.

Further major income 13% of our income was provided by our tireless fundraisers and from generous donations which continues to provide ~�10K every year (�12,782 in this year). Transfers from the Breakaway Project contributed to the total income figure by �7,5.000. Total income was therefore �98,380 compared with �98,613 in 2000/2001.

OurScheme expenditure at �93,830 leaves a surplus for the year of �4,550 which is transferred to the scheme reserves.

.The care attendant wages and travel costs accounted for �65,249. Scheme coordination and management accounted for �21,5212. Office overheads, fund raising, insurance, affiliation fees, audit etc accounted for �7,06059 (??7.5%).

If all expenditure is set against the number of respite hours provided this year (8,1323) this gives a cost per care hour of �????11.53. If scheme coordination and office overheads are set against grant income from HC & HHB, then the direct cost per care hour is �???8.02. The average cost of providing purchased care on behalf of Social Work Services is �8.67????? assuming again all co-ordination and office costs are set against the grants.

Overall a satisfactory year, yielding a small surplus with our unrestricted reserves standing at �????23,794. Restricted reserves identified with the excluding the Breakaway Project stand at at �?????9,598. The reserves are necessary to cover any staff redundancies in the event of having to close the scheme (hopefully, a very unlikely event) and also to cover 6 months operating expenditure in accordance with good company practice and to accommodate any late payment of grant money.

The Co-ordinator and Care Attendant hourly rates of pay were raised by ??2% in October. There were no Board or Management Committee expenses.