"I’d like to know how you understand my care and support needs."
We know it’s important to keep your independence and stay living in your own home for as long as possible.
We’ve put together some great advice, along with details of many services and support groups that can help you with this.
As part of the process for arranging care and support, we’ll contact you to arrange a telephone appointment to complete a needs assessment. This will help us to understand your care and support needs.
If you find it hard to understand things or explain your views and wishes, don’t worry. You can ask a family member or friend to be with you for your needs assessment telephone appointment. They can also take notes for you.
If you don’t know someone who can help, you can ask us to arrange for an independent advocate to support you during your assessment. An independent advocate is a trained professional who can help get your opinions heard.
A support worker from our adult social care team will carry out your needs assessment. Their aim is to help you make a plan to live well. Everybody’s needs are different so they’ll ask you lots of questions to find out what’s important to you.
We recommend that you think about the questions you’ll be asked before your appointment. It may also be useful to talk to family or friends for a different perspective. For example, they might think of everyday things you can’t do that you have just got use to not doing.
You can find out more about the questions they’ll ask below.
Everyday life
To get to know you, your support worker will ask some questions about your every day life, such as:
Things you can do on your own
They’ll also want to know if you can do things such as:
Give as much detail as you can about all the everyday tasks you struggle with, even the little ones like turning taps on and off. Leaving out things may reduce the care we recommend for you.
You will be encouraged to explain what you think you need and what you want to be able to do in the future.
Your wellbeing
Your support worker will also discuss how your care needs affect your wellbeing, and whether the services available can give you the help you want. When we look at your wellbeing we’ll consider:
Things that could help
If the assessment shows that you qualify to receive help from us, our support worker will talk through the type of services and help you could access to help you live well. This may include:
We will write to you shortly after your assessment to let you know what decision we have made and the reasons why.
If you qualify to receive care and support
We will work with you to create a care and support plan. A family member or advocate can support you if you wish.
If you do not qualify to receive care and support
You will be given written information and advice on how to access support locally and how to prevent or reduce your care needs.
These services could help you with:
We may also be able to put you in touch with other organisations who can support your wellbeing and help you remain independent for longer.
If you disagree with the outcome of your assessment - whether this is a decision not to give you support, or you feel you have not been offered enough care to meet your needs - you have the right to challenge the decision.
You can ask us to provide an explanation of our assessment and how we came to our decision. You can also ask us to look at your assessment again.
If you are still unhappy, you have a right to complain. You can find out more about our formal complaints procedure on the East Riding of Yorkshire Council website.