Adult Social Care Offer

What support is available?

A variety of services are available to support people, based on their needs and what they want to achieve.

A list of these services is below, visit care and support for more information.

• Information and advice through the Council and our partners.
• Support for unpaid carers, for example, respite and emotional support through the Carers’ Trust.
• Equipment and adaptations around the home – for more independent living.
• Day opportunities, for example, day centres or personalised support in the day for adults with disabilities and older people.
• Direct payments where people receive funding directly to organise social care and support services.
• Home support, for example, to support with personal care and meal preparation.
• Reablement support, to enable people to regain skills that may have been lost or reduced, develop existing skills, or learn new skills so that they are able to remain as independent as possible.
• Housing with care, where people have their own flat and there is care available on site.
• Shared Lives Scheme
• Care homes including residential and nursing homes.

We also provide a range of support for carers to support them with their carer’s duties including:

• Information and advice through the Council and our partners.
• Group-based support where we connect you to other carers for support.
• Training so that you have the skills to undertake caring duties – for example manual handling.
• Access to counselling services.
• Contingency planning through our CRESS (Carers Response Emergency Support Service).
• A Direct Payment to meet your needs as a carer.
• Opportunities to take a break such as residential respite or hours of support to take a break throughout the week (as part of a joint assessment).
• Providing direct support to the person you are caring for (as part of a joint assessment).

Helping you with care and support

When you first contact Adult Social Care

Contacting us can happen in different ways, this may be either you or a carer or family member making independent and direct contact. However, Adult Social Care support can also be accessed following contact with other professionals, for example hospital staff, your GP or other health professionals who recognise the need for assistance for you to continue to live independently or to enable an assessment of your ongoing needs.

Contact can be made via our health and social care website or directly to Adult Social Care Direct on: 024 7683 3003. E-mail: ascdirect@coventry.gov.uk

Our approach means that we will look at ways that could support you to live without the need for care services and would reduce the need for you to receive longer-term care and give you the opportunity to maintain or regain your independence.

For example, we may provide information, advice and guidance, on changes you could make at home or equipment that may help you with the things you find difficult or make it safer for you.

We might talk to you about telecare which is equipment linked to your phone line and a 24 hour monitoring centre that can respond to problems, for example, if you fall over at home.

You can have a pendant alarm to press in an emergency but there is also a range of sensors that can detect if you may be in difficulty and raise the alert for you. Trained operators can contact your family or the emergency services if necessary.

We may also talk to you about ‘brain in hand’ which offers a level of support and reassurance via an app downloaded to your phone. It may be that some support is provided for a brief period that could help you regain the skills and confidence to manage more for yourself. This could involve an Occupational Therapist visiting you to practice using the equipment or doing things differently, or a support worker from a care agency who may come to help you with things like washing and dressing until you are able to do them for yourself. As part of that offer we:

• will agree a plan with you about how you will be supported, what outcomes you want to achieve and how long the support period will last, usually no more than six weeks. There will usually be no charge for this service.
• will stay connected with you during this time to review how you are getting on and whether your outcomes have been met. If they have, we will conclude your assessment and make sure that you have all the information, advice and equipment you need to continue to manage at home. You will receive a copy of your assessment and a summary of the support and information that has been provided. The assessment will help you to explain your situation and what you want to achieve and to think about the choices available to you.

If you are admitted to hospital and need support on discharge, this can be arranged by either the team of professionals based at the hospital or Adult Social Care.

If you need ongoing care, we will look at whether you need further support and move on to the next stage. This stage of the assessment includes making decisions about your ongoing needs and whether you are eligible for continued support from the Council. It will also involve having a financial assessment to find out if you need to pay towards the cost of your care.

Assessing your needs

If you appear to have ongoing care and support needs, then we will provide a care and support assessment. To assist us all to determine what support you can receive through the Council, we will use the guidance set out in the Care Act 2014 (please see further information below). The Care Act 2014 also sets out the basis for understanding how we will work out how much you will pay towards your care.

The assessment will help you explain your situation and what you want to achieve and think about the choices available to you.

If you are in hospital and need support on discharge, we will make sure support is in place, when it is needed, so you can return home safely.

If this isn’t possible, we will arrange for you to move to a temporary care setting, so you don’t have to stay longer in hospital than you need to. We will identify which one of the discharge pathways best meet your needs identified at the point of discharge from hospital, this will then be followed by a care and support assessment if it appears that you may have an ongoing need for care and support.

We will work with you to find your own solutions, to enable you to build on positive areas of your life and identify whether you are eligible for support provided by the Council.

We will also consider the needs and views of family members or others who support you with aspects of your everyday life.

We support this process by enabling you to have control over the assessment process. To aid this we have created an online assisted self-assessment. The assessment form uses visuals and animations to support you to provide us with information about your strengths and needs. We will then use this information to help us understand how we can support you in the most effective way.

We will offer unpaid/family carers their own assessment and information and if appropriate, support for their needs. The assessment might involve meeting with a social care professional at your home, but where appropriate could also be done in other ways such as through a telephone assessment or a video call or an online questionnaire.

The means of assessment we will offer will be based on information you and professionals, already involved in your care, provide to us as well as any other concerns raised, but we will be clear why we propose these options and ensure we discuss them with you or the person who supports you.

If you require independent support to help you to understand information or to express your views, we will make sure this is available for you. We can support you with this by involving a suitable family member or friend or Advocate if needed.

If you need to pay for some of the support we provide for you we will ask you to complete a financial assessment. That way we can work out how much you can pay. If you don’t want to tell us about your money, you will have to pay for all of your care. You can still get information and advice about services available from us.

Supporting Carers

We will offer you a carer’s assessment if you are providing unpaid care. We will talk to you about how you want your assessment to be undertaken. This might be alongside the person you are caring for, sometimes called a combined or joint assessment or you may wish to have your assessment undertaken separately.

We will explore what is important to you, how your caring role impacts you, what parts of your caring role you want to maintain, need support with or want to end. We will explore how regularly you are able to take breaks and the other areas of your life that are important to you. Will also help you think about the future and what support you might need in the event of an emergency.

We will complete a support plan with you if required (and jointly with the person you are caring for) and will review this as your needs change over time.

We work in partnership with the Carers Trust Heart of England to provide carers’ support services. The contact details for Carers Trust Heart of England can be found in part three ‘useful information’.

Personal budgets for care and support

During the assessment, we will agree with you the level of support required to meet your assessed and eligible needs and translate this into an amount of money required to meet your needs - we call this a personal budget.

Once you know your personal budget and the agreed outcomes it will deliver, there are a number of ways you can manage your support. You can choose to:

• a. have more choice and control over your care and organise your own support, manage your budget, and make all payments yourself. We call this a Direct Payment.

or

• b. have us organise support for you within the levels of your budget and make all the payments. Any contribution you make towards the cost of your support package is paid to the Council.

We’ll talk to you about your options to help you make your decision. If you would like to explore the Direct Payment option but are concerned about how you would manage, we can explore this with you, as someone can manage the Direct Payments on your behalf.

As part of our Care Act assessment, we may identify some health needs. In this case we would arrange for a continuing health care assessment in order to determine your health needs and how best these will be met. This may lead to health services contributing to your personal budget whether you are having support in the community or in a nursing home.

Your care and support plan

We will write down the solutions that we have agreed with you in a care and support plan. A care and support plan is a detailed document setting out what services will be provided, how they will meet your needs, when they will be provided, and who will provide them. We will share the care and support plan with other professionals involved in your care. If you consent, we will also share it with family and friends if appropriate to do so.

Where this includes financial support from the Council, your plan will include a budget agreed for your needs. This is called a personal budget. In determining your budget, we will work with you to find the best value options that meet your assessed needs and promote your wellbeing.

There are different ways we offer financial support:

• If you require alternative accommodation, we will offer placements that meet your needs and are cost effective. However, if you choose a more expensive care facility we can support this if there is a third party (relative or friend for example) who can assist you to fund it. On these occasions we can enter into a ‘Top Up Arrangement’ with them.
• If you are receiving care at home we will offer you the opportunity to receive your budget directly into a separate bank account through a service called a Direct Payment from which you will purchase your care and support services. We will provide support to help you manage your funds when you need this.
• If you choose not to receive a Direct Payment, we will arrange appropriate services on your behalf and you would make your assessed contribution to the costs directly to the Council.

Reviewing your needs

We will work with you to monitor your care and support and to see if your care needs change over time.

Through reviewing your care and support plan, we will discuss with you whether the plan is working effectively, whether your needs have changed, whether more cost-effective options are available that can meet your needs (for instance through new technology), and whether your ability to make a financial contribution has changed.

This may result in changes to your care and support plan and personal budget.

Providers that are supporting you may contact us at an earlier point as your needs may change. We will involve them in your review along with others who are also involved. This might include family members and other professionals supporting you.