Revising the eligibility criteria for adult social care.

What do you mean by eligibility criteria?

How is the Health and Social Care Department revising them?

Why?

What will this mean in practice?

How has the Department consulted on this?

Stakeholder event documents

Who can I contact?

An easier read version is available.

What do you mean by eligibility criteria?

Councils don't have limitless resources to meet every request for social care. They have to decide who to provide support to -who is eligible - and the criteria for deciding which needs they can help with. ↑ questions

How is the Health and Social Care Department (-“the Department”) revising them?

Edinburgh Council has been using eligibility criteria which give priority to people in the category of critical or substantial risk. The definitions for these categories can be accessed here and are also in the Council's Guide to Adult Social Care Services. On 11th March 2010, Council agreed to adopt the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) guidance to Councils on National Eligibility Criteria and Waiting Times for the Personal and Nursing Care of Older People. This document is targeted at access to services for older people. However, it says that it can be applied to access to services for all Service User groups, not just older people and gives councils the option of doing this. The Department will take this option, subject to certain amendments in relation to risk and urgency. Full details of the Council decision (pdf document, requires adobe reader). It also intends to continue to:

Use the same assessment process for everybody to identify levels of need
give priority to those in highest need, in the critical and substantial risk categories of the national guidance
provide preventative services and support which promote independence and social inclusion within existing budgets, for managing the needs of people who are assessed as being at moderate or low risk.

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Why?

The Department thinks that this is the best way to be fair, consistent and transparent in its decisions about who gets services, whether those services are provided by the Department or by other providers with funding from it.
The Department agrees with the Scottish Government and COSLA that there should be more consistency in entitlement to social care services across Scotland. Adopting the national definitions will help to deliver more consistency nationally.

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What will this mean in practice?

Few changes are expected to result from changing the eligibility definitions, since the council has been using very similar criteria for the last 3 years.

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How is the Department going about it?

The Department consulted with stakeholders. One group of stakeholders was invited to one of three events in February to discuss the proposals. Another group was sent a questionnaire by email.

The Department used these responses to help revise the Equalities Impact Assessment on implementing national eligibility criteria and prepare a report, presented to the Council’s Health, Social Care and Housing Committee.

Council also agreed to two other recommendations which reflected views expressed during the consultation:

to ask the Directors of Health & Social Care and Services for Communities to establish an inter-departmental group to develop Council-wide policy on preventative services for people in need, for subsequent discussion with Community Planning partners.
to review the operation of eligibility criteria for adult social care within twelve months in the light of further progress on personalisation. ↑ questions

Stakeholder event documents