Adult Social Care

Adult social care: providing help, care and protection from harm for adults with physical disabilities, learning disabilities, or physical and mental illnesses. At its most basic, this can include help with washing, dressing, getting out of bed in the morning, help taking medicine, and help with the housework.

Social care is becoming more and more important as our population gets older. The number of over 85s in England has gone up by over a third in the last 10 years, and will more than double in the next 20.

Local government has the main responsibility when it comes to publicly funded social care.
So what do councils do? They provide information and advice, they assess and monitor your needs and finances, they provide short-term support called reablement, they safeguard vulnerable adults from abuse and neglect, and they buy and monitor care from a large range of organisations.

With more people living into older age, this means there will be more frail people and more people living with long-term illnesses. In turn this means that there will be more people with needs for care and support.

The number of people receiving formal care from the state has actually reduced over the past six years, despite this increase in need.

Our research shows that the social care system as it stands is struggling to meet the needs of older and disabled people.

More people work in adult social care than you might think. There are thousands of organisations all across the country employing lots and lots of people. What do they do?
You’ve got social workers, occupational therapists, nurses, or registered managers and supervisors. But the vast majority of people that work in adult social care are care workers for home care agencies or in care homes, residential or nursing.

Most people who provide care aren’t paid. People who look after an older, ill or disabled family member, friend or partner are called carers – although many wouldn’t describe themselves this way. There are almost six million carers in England; more than both the health and social care workforce put together.

Carers provide all sorts of practical support: help cooking meals, help with the washing, just keeping someone company; they also help with benefits and other financial matters. Sometimes they help with personal care.

The impact of caring is not just dictated by the number of hours of care provided. If you’re working full time, providing care while looking after young children, or having to travel long distances, then providing even just a few hours of care a week can have a serious impact on your life.

Care is delivered all around the country by different workers and organisations; but also in families and communities. Social care is not a term that you hear in everyday conversation, but it’s all around us.

Many people get a real shock when they or a relative develop needs for care and support, because they expect that care to be free at the point of access, just like the NHS.
But after the Second World War, the two systems – health and social care – were set up as two separately funded services.

Unlike the NHS, in order to access publicly funded social care your needs have got to meet certain criteria; they’ve got to be high enough. In order to access publicly funded social care, your means also have to be low enough. If you have more than a relatively small amount of savings and assets, you will have to pay for some – or all – of your care.

Social care is funded by people who pay for their own care, by local government, and in many cases a mixture of the two. Councils are still the biggest single purchaser of care services; the money they choose to spend in each area is drawn from a mixture of central government grants, council tax, user charges, business rates, and contributions from the NHS.

Since 2010, councils have had to deal with cuts in government funding. Although the government have introduced short-term measures to help councils pay for social care over the next few years, long-term changes are needed in the way that we pay for care.

The impact of a growing older population and increasing needs means there's real pressure on social care now. This is one of the most difficult policy challenges of our times, and it will take more than just one parliament to overcome it.

We often hear about people being stuck in hospital because of problems arranging social care, so how does social care work with the NHS and other services?

Good social care is about keeping people well, preferably in their own home; but it can't do this without working with a number of different organisations and professionals.

Adult social care is part of a complex system of related services and informal support, including health, housing, welfare, benefits and leisure.

People do not often consider social care until the point of need and can often experience services that do not feel coordinated or appear difficult to access. This means people don't often get the help that they need until they reach a crisis point. They might then seek help in A&E, and once people are admitted to hospital they can often enter a formal system of care and support that does not necessarily meet their needs in a way they would prefer.

Knowledge is power here and you will see links to different areas of Connect to Support that can provide you with the information you need to make informed decisions, to maintain your independence and live the life you choose.