Long-term care and support eligibility

There is a national eligibility threshold for long-term care and support, which is the same across England. It consists of three criteria, all of which must be met for your needs to be eligible for support from us. The eligibility threshold is based on finding out:

• Whether your needs are due to a physical or mental impairment or illness.

• To what extent your needs affect your ability to achieve two or more outcomes.

• Whether and to what extent this impacts on your wellbeing.

After your assessment, we will explain whether you are eligible for care and support from us. If you have eligible needs and want our help to arrange services to meet them, we can discuss this with you.

If you are eligible for social care support from us

We will complete a financial assessment to understand whether you will need to pay towards some or all of the cost of the support. This will depend on your income and any savings you may have. See page 54 for more information on financial assessments.

If your level of needs means that you are not eligible for support from us

We will offer free advice and information and put you in touch with other organisations and services in your community that may be able to help you. This could be face-to-face, over the telephone, in writing or a combination of these, whichever you feel would best meet your needs. You may find useful services and organisations at: www.northyorkshireconnect.org.uk

Carers’ eligibility

A carer is someone who, without payment, provides help and support to a friend, neighbour or relative who could not manage otherwise because of frailty, illness or disability. Just like adults with care and support needs, we will offer carers an assessment to see whether they have needs eligible for local authority support. Visit: www.northyorks.gov.uk/adult-care/carers/ eligible-needs-carers

A carer will have eligible needs if they meet all the following:

• Do the needs arise because the carer is providing necessary care and support?

• Is the carer’s physical or mental health affected or at risk of deteriorating, or is the carer unable to achieve any of the specified outcomes?

• Is there consequently a significant impact on the carer’s wellbeing?

Again, if a carer does not meet the eligibility criteria, we will offer free advice and information and put them in touch with other organisations and services in the community that may be able to help, including services specifically aimed at supporting carers. This could be face-to-face, over the phone, in writing or a combination of these, whichever they feel would best meet their needs.

The Care Act 2014

Helps to improve people’s independence and wellbeing. It makes clear that local authorities (in this case North Yorkshire Council) must provide or arrange services that help prevent people developing needs for care and support or delay people deteriorating to the point that they would need ongoing care and support. The Care Act 2014 sets out in one place local authorities’ duties in relation to assessing people’s needs and their eligibility for publicly funded care and support. If you would like more information about the Care Act, please see the Department of Health and Social Care’s guidance at: www.gov.uk (search ‘care and support statutory guidance’).

If your needs change

You can always ask us for a reassessment. Simply speak to your social care worker or contact our Customer Service Centre by emailing: social.care@northyorks.gov.uk or calling: 0300 131 2 131

For further information, visit: www.northyorks.gov.uk