In Sheffield assessments are carried out by cap’Care Managers’ who have no medical knowledge or specialist training – they are enhanced clerical staff essentially. Their modus operandi is to make many of the right noises at assessment, delay sending out paperwork and then send details of a much revised package. Respite seems to be their main target.

In my experiance the Social care community will unfortuantely always fear an educated service user for a couple of reasons. The first social workers are trained generically and not specifically. Thus thier actual knowledge of the care act and guidance may not be as good as ours. Secondly increasingly and worryingly im seeing more and more community support officers and less and less Social Workers, obviously there is a cost saving but they do not have the training given to social workers.

When ive been visited or ive supported others, when i enquire about their actaul knowledge of what a ” need” is ive very rearly had a good answer. If they dont even understand that the assesement should be based on needs not following a form what chance really do service users have.

Completely agree ras system is usless and what everyone wants to know is how much and what can i spend this on. Again youll get very different answers. When in fact is should be anything as long as its not illegal or for cigs or alchol and you can relate it to a need.

Instead of a us and them, i too want this to be a joint venture, where decissions are being made by the service user and the social services just support us in living our lives. Unfortuantely increasingly due to tightening of purse strings it looks like it want happen.

Shame really i actually like the way the Care Act works and the guidance helps. It even mentions and talks about Assisted Assesments, as mentioned above. But ive yet to see one authroity implment this. Just think of the time and money that could be saved.

Absolutely agree. I know I will always be okay, I always felt a responsibility to made it a fair system.for those less informed. And as an advocate, I am going to be more feared.

Hi Peter, it was a full assessment and there was no sign of uneligible needs and conflict. I had no sleepover which I know has been an issue for ILF transfers and because I worked it justified ‘leisure’ as a wellbeing need. The issue was costings and the fact the ilf transfer project ended before my assessment was finished, as I was clearly the last one.

‘there is a fear that this is at the expense of less well informed service users and/or those who are not able to speak up for themselves’.

You might be surprised at the number of campaigners who fear the same thing and campaign for ‘fairness’ because we are aware of our own resiliency that others in our position may not have for whatever reason – that is the common ground between many campaigners and professionals.

Typos (apologies) fault FINDING not funding. And meeting NONE of the criteria for an order, not nine (!)

The only other situation involving ILF that has been reported is the judicial review of Luke Davey’s circumstances, which I have described in an article I wrote for Community Care
https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2017/04/13/lessons-social-workers-care-act-test-case-wellbeing/. His personal budget was reduced from £1,651 per week to £950 per week after the ILF closed. He unsuccessfully argued that this proposed reduction posed risks to his wellbeing and the council had made unlawful decisions.

Simon – it would be useful to know whether your care and support needs were reassessed, or did the review just consider whether your personal budget was sufficient to meet your existing needs? As you may know the Care Act statutory guidance doesn’t require a review to include an assessment of needs unless they have changed.