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People may need our help because they have an illness or disability, are frail or have family difficulties. We provide a wide range of support to adults with learning disabilities, physical or sensory disabilities (sight or hearing) or mental health needs.
We can not help everyone so we use guidlines set out by the Government to help us decide who can use our services. These guidelines are only used for services for adults.
Eligibility Criteria
The guidelines are there to make sure that everyone in the country has the same chance of getting help. They are used to help us decide who we should arrnage support for and what this support should be.
If you do not meet the criteria and do not qualify for our service, we will give you information or advice about who else can help, like voluntary organisations or community groups.
You can get more information about the guidelines by looking at our leaflet "Who can recieve social care services" which is attached at the bottom of the page.
What will happen when you contact us?
We will ask you some questions to find out what help you may need and if you qualify for a service. For example, you might need help to manage at home or help to care for someone. The kind of questions you will be asked will include your name and how we can contact you, what your situation is and what your strengths and difficulties are. We might ask these questions over the phone or meet with you. This part is called the screening process.
After the screening process we should know whether you need to have an assessment or not.
What is an assessment?
We carry out an assessment to find out all the information that is needed so we can understand your situation and the sort of help you may need. We look at the risks there may be if you did not have any help.
Saying what you think will be an important part of the assessment. You need to tell us all the things you can can can't do and what you would like to happen or what you need help with. You will be directly involved in all decisions about your care.
We try to finish all assessments within 28 days, we may only need to see you once to finish it, or we may need to see you a few times.
What if you are a carer?
If you look after someone in your family, a friend or neighbour, and you are not paid to do this, we call you a carer. This means that you can ask us to look at what help you may need, for this we would carry out a carers assessment.
If you think you need to make a referral into the service for an assessment please call free phone 0800 561 0015 where you will be able to speak to a trained contact centre advisor who will be able to help and guide you through the process.