How to get Support
Social Care Assessment
Who begins the Social Care Assessment process?
A Social Care Assessment can simply start with you deciding that you need more help. You or a family member or friend can begin the process online using the online self-assessment or you can contact Adult Social Care by phone on 0300 123 7034.
More information on this can be found on our Managing someone else's affairs page.
This might be your GP or a person you have contact with in a professional way.
Professionals must refer via the Professional Referral form.
First steps
Depending on the information provided we might have a further conversation with you or recommend support such as:
- Support from the NHS if your needs are due to an ongoing health condition
- Signposting you to support in your community
- Let’s Talk
- Police
- Technology Enabled Care
- Ask Sara; Explore the range of equipment which could help you
- Small good Stuff; linking people who need care or support with local people who can help.
Or one of our in-house teams for a full Social Care Assessment:
- Support from an Occupational Therapist
- Support from one of our specialist teams:
- Learning Disability
- Visual Impairment Team
- Community Mental Health teams
- Transitions Team and Autism Hub
- Complex Care and Review Team
- Safeguarding Team
- Hospital Discharge Team
- Review Team
- Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Team
- Mental Health Teams
- Reablement Team
- Promoting independence Team
- Approved Mental Health Professional Hub
- Reablement support; a period of assessment where you receive support for a maximum of six weeks, to increase your independence and to help identify the right level of support for you at this time
- Referral to our Community Social Work Teams
For a full list of our teams in Adult Social Care visit our Teams page
What is in a Social Care Assessment
During a social care assessment, we'll consider:
- what is important to you; including your strengths, needs and what goals you want to achieve
- what help and support you have or could have from the people in the community around you
- the things you may need some support with to keep you well, and maximising your independence
The social care assessment will include:
- physical needs, such as any help you need to wash, dress, or get in and out of bed
- mental and emotional needs, such as whether you can carry on working, volunteering or being able to meet your friends
There are national eligibility criteria for social care, as stated in The Care Act 2014 which consists of three criteria, all of which must be met.
We make decisions based on the following outcomes:
- Do the needs arise from a physical or mental impairment or illness?
- Do these needs mean that the adult is unable to achieve two or more of the listed outcomes in the Care Act?
- Do these needs therefore have a significant impact on your wellbeing?
Diagnosed health conditions
The Care Act does not require that individuals have a formal diagnosis of a physical or mental impairment or illness. Instead, we must make a judgement based on the assessment process. However, assessors will need to be assured that an individual’s needs are not caused by circumstantial factors, but by a physical or mental condition.
