Need Social Care?

Community Care -can we help?

Are you entitled to help from Adult and Community Services?

What do we mean by ‘Community Care’?

“Community Care” is the term used to describe support arranged by Health and Adult Social Care services such as home care, day care, meals provision, promoting independence and rehabilitation. It can also include short stays in residential or nursing homes, and organising transport to use any of these services. Our aim is for you to continue to live as independently as you are able in the way that you want to.

Can we help?

Sometimes people need extra support to manage at home. It might only be for a short while, perhaps after an accident or a severe illness. For other people it might be a longer-term disability, health problem, or some other reason, which brings about the need for more permanent care arrangements. In all cases, we have to find out what help is needed and what we can do to provide it.

How do we decide?

First of all we make an assessment of a person’s needs. This will involve someone from Adult Social Care services seeing the person and talking through the kinds of things they are struggling with in their day-to-day life. If there are already family or friends providing care, we would be keen to involve them in the assessment and hear their views. Even if other people are not involved, the person might wish to have a friend or someone else with them. You can read more about this process in our fact sheet ”A Guide To Assessment".

As we get a clearer picture of what the person’s needs are, so we find out the impact these have on their life and family responsibilities. We can then check how these fit our Eligibility Criteria for offering help. The needs which meet our Eligibility Criteria are the ones we have a duty to respond to.

What are Eligibility Criteria?

This is a set of guidance (the Eligibility Framework) issued to us by the Government on how we should determine the levels of people’s needs. This framework is described in the Department of Health's guidance 'Fair Access to Care Services' (FACS). Instead of each local authority deciding its own criteria, the FACS guidance tells us which criteria to use.

Creating a Care Plan

Once we are clear what difficulties a person is having, and what they would like to achieve, we work with that person to create a Care Plan. This is a written plan summarising their needs, the impact these have, the kinds of services and help required, and within what timescales. Helping the person decide what they want to achieve is an important part of Care Planning, which also describes the informal help given from friends and family

If any of the services we provide have to be charged for, the need for a financial assessment will be discussed. A financial assessment ensures that any charges made are fair and affordable.

What if a person’s needs are not seen as meeting our criteria?

Occasionally some or all the needs a person has fall outside our eligibility criteria. In this case, we would discuss other ways of meeting those needs. There are many organisations across Worcestershire who might be able to help instead, and we would advise and assist with arranging their support.

There might also be national organisations who could help and, again, we would try to find out more.

If there are no other organisations that could help, the Social Worker would explore any other ways of overcoming the problem.

When we are not able to help

If we have decided there are needs which do not meet our criteria for help, and the person disagrees, they can ask for the matter to be reconsidered. This should be discussed with the Social Worker or their manager.  There is further information in our ‘Compliments, comments, complaints’ pages.

Reviewing Services

Any service that is provided to meet a person's indentified needs will be reviewed and if a person no longer meets the eligibility criteria then the service will cease.

More Information

For more information about our community care services, please contact our Access Centre.

Download the Community Care - Can we help information     A5 Information Sheet - for single sided pritning  (365.24 KB)    A5 Booklet - for back to back printing  (185.06 KB)

Related Links   

• Eligibility Framework - Fair Access to Care Services (FACS)  
• A Guide to Assessments
  
  External websites   
• Department of Health: Fair access to care services - guidance on eligibility criteria for adult social care