Adult social care needs assessment

You can contact us yourself for a conversation, or ask a relative or friend to do it for you. Not everyone will need to complete a full social care needs assessment. The assessment looks in detail at your situation and what is important to you. It helps the assessor understand your strengths and abilities and what care and support you might need to stay independent, safe and well. Together we can work out a care and support plan.

The assessor will either complete your assessment with you, or you can be supported to complete it yourself (this is called a supported self assessment).

You can have family member, friend, someone who knows you really well or a formal advocate with you during your assessment. The social care needs assessment is a two way conversation. With your permission, we might ask the opinion of other professionals who know and work with you.

We will also take account of the needs of your family or carer and complete an assessment with them separately if they ask us to.

The social care needs assessment will focus on:

• Exploring your current circumstances
• your strengths and abilities
• what's working well
• what's not working so well
• if you need any help – we might be able to signpost you to help in the community

Any information you give us will be treated as confidential and will not be shared with anyone else without your permission - other than in exceptional circumstances where the law says we must show it to someone else.

The assessment considers a number of areas of your life, which include your current situation and what has led you to your assessment:

• your health
• your safety
• your physical abilities
• your mental health
• how you look after yourself on a daily basis
• your involvement in your community
• who supports you, if anyone
• what your needs are

It will bring together a summary of your needs and the outcomes you want to achieve. The assessor will look at whether there are any risks to you and your wellbeing and agree with you how they can be best managed.

They will also look at how to help you prevent and delay the need for care and support. They will give you their professional opinion and following the assessment, your assessor will determine whether you are eligible for support from the council.

There may be care and support available from other organisations and your local community which are more appropriate to meet your needs.

You can buy equipment or make changes to your home and your lifestyle to help to keep you independent, safe and well.

The aim of adult care and support is to help people meet their needs so they are able to achieve the outcomes that matter to them.

These outcomes include:

• Managing and maintaining nutrition
• Maintaining personal hygiene
• Managing toilet needs
• Being appropriately clothed
• Being able to make use of the home safely
• Maintaining a home environment that is fit to live in
• Developing and maintaining family or other personal relationships
• Accessing and engaging in work, training, education or volunteering
• Making use of necessary facilities or services in the local community, including public transport, and recreational facilities or services
• Carrying out any caring responsibilities the adult has for a child.

The Care and Support (Eligibility Criteria) Regulations 2014 say that local authorities must consider whether an adult’s needs meet the eligibility criteria if:

• the adult’s needs arise from or are related to a physical or mental impairment or illness
• as a result of the adult’s needs, the adult is not able to achieve two or more of the outcomes outlined above
• as a consequence of not being able to achieve these outcomes there is, or there is likely to be, a significant impact on the adult’s wellbeing

An adult’s needs are only eligible where they meet all three of these conditions.

If you have assets and/or savings of more than £23,250 you will have to pay the full costs of your care. If you have assets and/or savings between £14,250 and £23,250, you are likely to have to pay for some of your care.

If you are eligible for support we will ask you to complete a financial assessment questionnaire. This will help us work out how much you can afford to pay towards your care.

• Find out more about paying for care

We can arrange a personal budget for you, which is the total amount of money needed to provide the activities recorded in your care and support plan, including the amount the Council will pay and the amount you will need to pay.

Your personal budget can be paid either directly to you as a Direct Payment or can be managed by us or by other specialist organisations on your behalf.

• Find out more about Direct Payment

If you are paying for all of your own support we can still give you advice and help you to organise your care.

If you have to pay for the full cost of your care and ask us to arrange your home and community care for you, we will charge an annual, recurring arrangement fee of £520 to organise this on your behalf.

Find out more about organising care and support.

If you are sourcing care privately we would recommend that you find an agency through the Guide to Independent Living from Care Choices, working in partnership with us and/or NHS Choices, to find suitable care and check it meets national standards. The Care Quality Commission website can tell you about providers’ standards of quality and safety.

If you arrange your own care and support, you do not need to be assessed by the council. However, if you appear to have needs for care and support, you are still entitled to an assessment if you would like one.

Find out more about types of care.