What is adult social care?

What is adult social care?

If you or a loved one needs support with everyday tasks, social care may be right for you. Social care includes someone providing practical support such as personal care or prompting support such as talking you through carrying out a task.

Care and support for adults

For those who need extra help to manage their lives and be independent, including

  • older people
  • people with a disability or long-term illness
  • people with mental health problems
  • those who look after someone or are carers

Adult social care includes:

  • assessment of your needs
  • provision of services or allocation of funds to enable you to purchase your own care and support
  • residential care
  • home care
  • personal assistants
  • day services
  • the provision of aids and adaptations
  • personal budgets

Social care provides support to live your life, if you need support with everyday tasks due to having a health condition or illness.

If you need support with the following you may need social care support

  • looking after yourself
  • your home
  • your finances
  • being able to socialise
  • being able to work or volunteer

You may only need support for a short while or maybe, you need something a little more long-term. 

We can provide support in both situations but will never make long-term plans for someone when their life is in crisis. It’s always better to address that need first before considering where we go from there. 

If you appear to have care or support needs, you have a legal right to an assessment of your care needs and finances:

Types of social care

Social care services can include things like:

Who pays for Social Care?

In Worcestershire, social care and support services are usually paid for either:

If you are eligible to receive adult social care support on a long-term basis, we will talk to you some more, to complete a  financial assessment to work out how much, if anything, you will have to contribute towards the cost of care yourself.

This will determine whether, and how much, you would be asked to pay towards the costs of your care. 

If you are assessed as needing to pay the full costs of your care, you can make arrangements for yourself. 

Find out more about paying for care

We can provide you with information about care services. 

The Worcestershire Care Services Directory has information about care providers in Worcestershire.

As a result of your conversations with us, you will have a much better idea of the range of options that are available to you and what to look for when purchasing services.

If you need support from medically trained assistants to help you look after yourself, and you have a complex, long term condition, you may need NHS continuing healthcare to provide your social care. This type of social care is free of charge.

Do I need Social Care?

If you think you or someone else may need care or support, first step is to contact Worcestershire County Council. 

We can discuss what it is that you need.

Find out how social care can help by visiting assessments and eligibility.

If you look after someone or are a carer

If you look after someone regularly because they're ill or disabled, you're probably a carer.

For more information including assessments and respite visit looking after someone and support for carers

Continuing healthcare

If your main need for care is because of your health you may be eligible for NHS "continuing healthcare" (CHC) funded support. For more information, see: Continuing Healthcare

Further information