SCIE media releases 2005

Changes to the Care Services Improvement Partnership

08 February 2005

Following a three-month consultation, Community Minister Stephen Ladyman today announced that the Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP) will not be hosted by the Social Care Institute of Excellence (SCIE).

Original plans for CSIP had proposed that it might be integrated into SCIE, but following several months of consultation, it has been concluded that the Department of Health's need to influence the activities of CSIP might impact on SCIE's independent charitable status, which both organisations believe should be maintained.

The Department of Health and SCIE today reconfirmed their commitment to working together and exploring strategic alliances to build on early work and to collaborate on service improvement across health and social care.

An announcement of how CSIP will be taken forward will be made shortly.

Health Minister Stephen Ladyman said:

"This consultation has helped us re-evaluate how we take this process forward. We want to progress the partnership while also protecting the independence of SCIE. The CSIP principle will be moved forward and its work with SCIE will provide a real opportunity to have substantial impact on the quality of services for the people who use them and their carers.

"SCIE has done excellent work in the past and will do excellent work in the future and I will explore with them how best we can support that work."

Chair of SCIE, Jane Campbell, said:

"SCIE aims to improve service users' experience by developing and promoting knowledge about good practice. We look forward to sharing this knowledge and experience with the Department of Health but after careful consideration we are confident that it is in the best interests of SCIE and our stakeholders that the integration not proceed.

"The independence of our work is vital for the maintenance of our good reputation, which is based on producing resources which are evidence-based and which involve the knowledge and experience of service users.

"We look forward to working with CSIP in the future in a partnership that will fully utilise our knowledge-based approach to social care and their experience of service improvement."

Media contact

Margaret Lynch | Press Officer | SCIE | T: 020 7089 6858 | M: 07834 194 896

Orla Delargy | Department of Health Media Centre | 020 7210 5315