Assessing needs and paying for care - Print version

What is an assessment?

An assessment means collecting information about you and your life and talking with you about the difficulties you have and how they affect your wellbeing. This helps us to understand your situation, what your needs are and how to plan for the future. It is a very important process and should not just be seen as a way to get care and support services; sometimes there are other ways to help you.

Listed below are some of the things we will look at during your assessment so before you contact us or complete an online self assessment [/adultscid], you might like to think about them. It might help to write things down.

• Who (if anyone) you would like to be involved in your assessment. If you have a carer then we will need to speak to them
• What you are finding difficult and how this is affecting you in your daily life
• Your daily routine and how you manage
• Your health and how it affects you, including medication, recent visits or contact with GP or hospital
• Looking after yourself (e.g. washing, dressing, meals, shopping, managing your home and finances)
• Things you enjoy doing
• Things that are important to you
• Support already available to you – what’s working well (e.g. help from family and friends, equipment and aids, paid carers)
• Anything that has worked well in the past
• If you are a carer, how your caring role affects you day to day
• What about things you do well?
• What would you like to achieve/do more of?

Any adult who may have needs for care and support can have an assessment.

Anyone who looks after another adult and may need help to enable them to continue to care can have a Carer's Assessment [/carersassessment].

What happens during an assessment?

The assessment will begin when you first contact us or if someone contacts us on your behalf. We will talk to you about your current concerns and difficulties and what you would like to improve and change. It will be important to understand any recent changes in your life.

First of all, we will ask you for your permission to record the information about you on our social care recording system. We may need to share or collect some of this information from other agencies and organisations if we help to arrange support for you. This could include information from your GP. We will keep this information safe and confidential.

We will look at different types of support that can prevent you needing longer term care and give you the opportunity to maintain or regain your independence. For example, we may suggest equipment or changes you could make at home that might help you with the things you find difficult or make it safer for you and/or we will try and link you to community support and resources.

It may be that some support provided for a short period could help you regain the skills and confidence to manage more for yourself, we will usually offer this support before considering ongoing support. If you need further support we will work with you to make 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.

How will you decide if my needs are eligible for support?

Once we have identified what your needs are, we will use a set of rules to help us decide if you are able to get support from us. These are national rules and you may hear them called the “eligibility threshold” or “eligibility criteria”. If any of your needs are currently being met by a carer or in any other way we will still consider whether those needs are eligible in case you need support in the future. If your needs change or vary from time to time because of your health or situation we will consider this when making decisions about whether you are eligible for
support.

After the assessment we will write to you and explain our decision and the reasons behind it. If you have eligible needs we will work with you to plan your care and support. If you do not have needs that are eligible we will give you information and advice about what care and support is available to help you. For example, this could be from local charities or voluntary organisations.

How will the Council help me plan my support?

Your assessment will help us work out how much support you may require, based on your individual needs. We may estimate what it might cost the Council to support you; this is called an ‘indicative amount’ and is a starting point for calculating what your Personal Budget [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/money-legal-matters/assessments-eligibility-support-planning/4] will be. This is the amount the Council will contribute to your care and support.

We will also consider cost-effectiveness in providing support. This means that the right amount of support is provided without costing more than it needs to. The cost of different potential options will be a relevant factor in deciding between options to meet someone’s care and support needs. Alternative options to Local Authority funded care will be considered in the first instance. For example, family or friends who are willing to provide care will be approached, equipment may be provided, or community services considered.

Where the local authority is responsible for providing services to meet care and support needs, a personal budget will be calculated. This is enough to enable support to be arranged to meet a person’s assessed needs in the most cost-effective way. A person’s personal budget will not usually be increased above this amount. However, people can choose to purchase more care or use a more expensive alternative if they are able to fund the additional cost.

Your care and support plan will also include all advice, information, signposting, money and services that the Council will be providing to you. All of this information will be written down in your Care and Support Plan and you will have a copy of this. This information may need to be shared with people or agencies involved in your support with your permission but we will talk to you about this at the time.

We will ask you if you would like our help to arrange your support or if you would like to do this yourself. There are a number of choices:

• You could have the Personal Budget [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/money-legal-matters/assessments-eligibility-support-planning/4] paid to you so that you can arrange your own support. This means you can choose who helps you at the times you prefer and in a way that suits you.
• When your Personal Budget [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/money-legal-matters/assessments-eligibility-support-planning/4] is paid to you this is called a Direct Payment [/directpayments]. If you need support to manage a Direct Payment [/directpayments] you can have someone to do this for you or with you. 
• We could arrange your support for you. Even when the Council sets up and pays your support for you using your Personal Budget [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/money-legal-matters/assessments-eligibility-support-planning/4], you will still be given choice about the best ways to support you with your needs
• You could have the Personal Budget [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/money-legal-matters/assessments-eligibility-support-planning/4] paid to a third party so that they can arrange your support on your behalf. This means you can choose who helps you at the times you prefer and in a way that suits you. When your Personal Budget [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/money-legal-matters/assessments-eligibility-support-planning/4] is paid to a third party, this can be called an Individual Service Fund or a managed account.
• You can have some of the money paid to you as a Direct Payment [/directpayments] for you to organise some of your support and ask the Council to set up the rest of your support.

Will I have to pay towards my support?

We will work out how much you may have to contribute to the cost of your support. We will carry out a financial assessment to work out if you will need to pay anything towards your care and how much that might be. At this stage we will only be able to give you an estimate of what the Council might pay and what you might pay but it will help to start planning your care and support.

What happens when I am receiving support?

Once your support is in place, we will check back with you after 6 to 8 weeks to make sure that everything is working effectively for you. Your care and support plan will then be reviewed on a yearly basis to make sure that the plan is still right for you. If you think your needs have changed, you can call us at any time to request a review. If you disagree with any part of the process, you should discuss this first with your assessor. You can also make a complaint via our Adult Social Care complaints process [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/socialcarecomplaint].

Personal Budgets and arranging your support

What is a Personal Budget?

When we have agreed with you on the best ways to help you, we will work out how much this will cost as soon as possible. We will then agree with you the amount the Council will contribute to your care and support. This is called a ‘Personal Budget’.

Your care and support plan will also include all advice, information, signposting, money and services that the Council will be providing to you.

Coventry City Council has an obligation to use public funds wisely and effectively to ensure that we can provide good quality services and meet our legal obligations.

Will this information be written down?

All of this information will be written down in your Care and Support Plan and you will have a copy of this.

This information may need to be shared with people or agencies involved in your support with your permission but we will talk to you about this at the time.

How will my support be arranged?

We will ask you if you would like our help to arrange your support or if you would like to do this yourself. There are a number of choices:

1. You could have the ‘Personal Budget’ paid to you so that you can arrange your own support. This means you can choose who helps you at the times you prefer and in a way that suits you. When your ‘Personal Budget’ is paid to you this is called a ‘Direct Payment [/directpayments]’.
   If you need support to manage a Direct Payment [/directpayments] you can have someone to do this for you or with you. This is explained more in the next section.
   We can still provide you with information about care agencies or organisations or people that might be able to help you if you needed us to.
2. We could arrange your support for you. Even when the Council sets up and pays your support for you using your ‘Personal Budget’, you will still be given choice about the best ways to support you with your needs.
3. You could have the ‘Personal Budget’ paid to a third party so that they can arrange your support on your behalf. This means you can choose who helps you at the times you prefer and in a way that suits you.  When your ‘Personal Budget’ is paid to a third party, this is called an ‘Individual Service’.
4. You can have some of the money paid to you as a Direct Payment for you to organise some of your support and ask the Council to set up the rest of your support.

You will also be told if you will have to pay towards your support and how much that will be.

You could also decide to pay an additional payment or a ‘top up’ towards your care and support of your choice.

Your Care and Support Plan will include details about what support you will get, who it will come from, when it will happen and how much it costs.

Download our printable guide about Personal Budgets [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/downloads/file/35061/personal_budgets_leaflet]