Pilots for self assessments of people with long-term needs announced

Care services minister Ivan Lewis today announced 11 pilots for people with long-term needs to self-assess their social care and health needs.

The councils will receive a total of £850,000 of funding for the pilots, which will run from October 2006 to September 2007.

The 11 councils are:

Barnet
Birmingham
Bristol
Croydon
Derby City
East Riding of Yorkshire
Hammersmith and Fulham
Hull
Kingston upon Thames
Nottinghamshire
St Helens

The pilots will look at how people can assess their support needs ranging from equipment and home care to housing adaptations.

The Our Health, Our Care, Our Say white paper, published in January, contained proposals for the development of self-assessment as part of a new common assessment framework for adult care.

Ivan Lewis said today: “Self-assessment has the potential to give patients and service users much greater control over their care and faster, easier, access to services.”