Day services for old people are steadily returning to full strength after the Covid-19 pandemic - and further improvements are planned for the future.

Caroline Cameron, director of North Ayrshire health and social care partnership (HSCP) and integration joint board (IJB) chief officer delivered the news at Thursday’s IJB meeting.

The HSCP temporarily closed its older people’s day services early in 2020 due to Covid.

Staff were redeployed to critical frontline services, including Care at Home and PPE distribution, with alternative day services supports delivered during the period of closure, such as outreach and befriending services.

The remobilisation of day services, with changes made, began last June, and all four in-house mainland day centres reopened by the end of August - though the service has yet to be reintroduced on Arran.

All day services have been increasing each week and, as of May 31,  all were open to provide building-based support from Monday to Friday.

The waiting list for each service is reviewed weekly and plans are in place to fully reopen at maximum capacity to ensure the demand for day opportunities can be met.

Day service outreach remains in place for some of the day services and a team of day service outreach workers will be recruited by the end of this year.

That will enable the partnership to deliver outreach and day service support over seven days, including early evenings and weekends.

This will also include a befriending model and enable the most vulnerable throughout North Ayrshire to benefit from day services in their own home, and also have a weekly virtual support to reduce loneliness and social isolation.

A community-based pilot approach to the restart of day services on Arran has been launched and will be evaluated over the coming months to inform the future provision on the island.