Paying for social care (older people)

Hi everyone, my name is Nick and I’m a social worker working in Leeds.

So a needs assessment is where a social worker will have a conversation with you about what your social care needs are.

So the, the formal word to describe an assessment for your social care needs is a Care Act Assessment but in different local authorities, it might go by different names such as in Leeds where I work it’s called a Conversation Record and then in other local authorities it’s sometimes called a Needs Assessment. But ultimately all these assessments are the same thing and it’s where the social worker is having a conversation with you and potentially your loved one, if they’re present, and basically just assessing what your needs are and what support can be put in place to improve your life.

So in a needs assessment, the social worker will be trying to, first of all, look at what support you already have in place. So this might be support from family. It might also be support from other agencies such as home care. And they’ll also look at your health conditions, both physical and mental health and explore the ways in which these conditions might impact upon areas such as getting washed and dressed, meal preparation, mobility and accessing the community.

It’s worth it just to know what services are available because so many people don’t actually know what’s out there to actually help them so a lot of the time, you know, people might be struggling so they might be struggling with things like getting washed and dressed or they might feel quite isolated and either they don’t feel confident accessing support or they don’t even know that the support’s out there. So I suppose it’s to kind of, it’s on the one hand it is assessing their needs but as well as assessing it’s also providing information around what’s available. So it’s not just really assessing, it’s also informing as well.

So we were getting through it, the capital was going down much faster than it had been in [name of northern town], but that’s what we’d anticipated. So in July I went online to [name of southern county] County Council and filled in the form to request a financial assessment. So first what happens is that you, because we were in a different authority, that before you could have the financial assessment you had to have a Social Services’ assessment to, they had to satisfy themselves that she did need residential care.

So a needs assessment had to be carried out first?

Yes, that had to be carried out first, which that took place; I met the social worker at the care home and that [laughs] well what, what did she, I didn’t warm to the social worker, the particular social worker because how did she put it? She said, oh yes, “Because I have to come out and satisfy myself that your mum’s not just a bit lonely and has taken herself into residential care, you see.” And I’m thinking would anybody really want to live in a place [laughs] like this? I certainly hope not to. And so I said, “Well yes, that’s fine,” I said, “but she has been in residential care for a number of years and she has had Alzheimer’s for 5 years and she’s 91, but yes, by all means I’m quite happy, I realise we have to go through this, come and…” So that was about 2 hours because you have to go right back to the year dot with all the assessment.

No, not a need, no, he was assessed for whether he for what level of PIPs he can have, but I suppose any other needs assessment, no. He did have an assessment a few years ago but things have changed; and again I will have to chase that up if I feel that we need it, you know, so if don’t ask don’t get.

I think we had a needs assessment. A young lady came round and asked us all sorts of questions; that was in the time that was in the period while Audrey was still responding to my own in-house care and I suppose we said that yes we were managing as it was.

My first place would be to start with the local authority, even if you do believe that you may be a self-funder, I think someone coming in to give professional advice about assessment of their needs from an outsider’s point of view.

My dad always says to me that I notice things a lot more than he does because he’s with my mum every single day and I often come in and say, you know, I’ve already noticed that, you know, mum’s not having a good day today, and he can think that actually she’s been OK and she’s not too bad but that might be because I’ve not seen her for a week and you know, she’s, she’s got a bit worse in certain aspects. So I’d say the local authority to get an assessment of care needs is a really good place to start.

The, prior to her going into hospital and us trying to get her care, prior to that, the absolute godsend was the young social worker. He was a young lad and I thought, when I say again ‘books and covers’ [laughs], I just thought ‘Oh my God’, you know, ‘she’s just going to run you out of the house, mate, you haven’t got a chance’. But he absolutely charmed her and was a real dream. He came with the carer as well the first time round, introduced them and he talked to the care providers and said, “You know, for the first couple of weeks don’t do anything, just go in and, you know, chat, have a cup of tea, get her used to that.” And he was, he was really good, he was really good. If it hadn’t been for him I, it would have been a lot harder for her to accept the care, but I was able to say, “Ooh, you know, you, you told, you told…” – I can’t even remember his name now and I should do because he was, he was an absolute gem – “you told so-and-so that, that you’d do this didn’t you? Now have I got to ring him and tell him that you’re not going to?” “No.” [Laughter]. So yeah, so that, that’s how that happened.