Government must introduce social care assessment oversight to safeguard service user rights, study argues

National monitoring mechanism necessary to ensure consistency and that financial considerations not overruling Care Act entitlements, researchers argue

The government must introduce a national mechanism to monitor social care needs assessments and the staff who conduct them to ensure consistency and equality, a report published this week argues.

Lack of oversight has created an environment in which finance-driven social care assessments can deprive people of support packages, leaving Care Act 2014 and human rights obligations unfulfilled, the study found.

Some older people interviewed for the study, by the international organisation Human Rights Watch, said they were told before an assessment was carried out that services to them would be cut.

One, ‘Peter’, said a social worker told him that an extra hour of care would be “more than her job was worth” and that instead his support would be cut.

Lack of understanding

Other interviewees raised concerns that assessors appeared not to understand their disabilities or social care needs, the study said.

Too often, it found, people trying to appeal decisions had their original packages suspended in the meantime.

The study raised questions over the lack of systematic auditing of decisions, and quoted one local authority administrator who said she had been asked to submit fraudulent data to the Department of Health and Social Care.

As well as introducing national monitoring, the report called for further review of the impact of austerity policies on adult social care provision, and for the government to facilitate sustainable long-term funding.

‘Decisions based on finances, not needs’

The Human Rights Watch study was carried out during 2017 and 2018 and was based on 104 interviews, including with 27 older people aged between 58 and 94 and 20 family carers.

Researchers also interviewed 51 professionals, including charity staff, lawyers, academics and health practitioners – though, the report said, they were unable to interview any social workers, who have frequently raised concerns about the assessment system.

The report quoted one day care worker who complained that demand had risen – because people were losing home-based support – to the point where he and colleagues could no longer answer the phone.

“Now, decisions are based on finances, not needs,” he said. “About five years ago, we started seeing people with higher and higher levels of need.”

Service users quoted in the study complained that decisions about their care appeared pre-planned, based on cost-cutting agendas.

While many appealed, a key area of concern identified by the study was that most lost services while their case was being reviewed.

Two councils – North Yorkshire and Dorset – told researchers they had the discretion to maintain or issue services pending an appeal, but did not clarify how frequently they did so or what criteria they used.

Some interviewees also told researchers their assessments were inaccurate or inconsistent, with one saying that her assessor did not appear to “know anything about dementia”.

System failures

The study noted recent comments from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, Michael King. King said last year that he was increasingly seeing bad decisions within adult social care being made as a result of problems with “systems, policies and the way procedures are being applied” rather than individual errors.

The new findings come in the wake of a Community Care investigation into local authorities’ use of funding panels, which were found to be “testing the limits” of the Care Act.

Legal expert Yogi Amin, a partner in public law at Irwin Mitchell, warned last year that councils who use funding panels to scrutinise all adult social care packages were breaching statutory guidance under the Care Act.

The guidance stipulates that local authorities may take their budgetary position “into reasonable consideration” when determining how to meet needs. But, under the Care Act, when a duty to meet needs is triggered, councils have no discretion as to whether to meet need.

‘Utterly unfair’ system

Responding to the study findings, Garrod said ongoing and significant reductions in funding, alongside increasing demand, had inevitably affected the scope of care packages and size of direct payments.

“Across the country social care staff are working hard to find ways, with families, friends and communities to meet people’s care needs in the most personal and best way that they can,” Garrod said. “Inevitably some invidious decisions are having to be made. These stories are very regrettable and we most certainly would not support any fraud in data returns (nor are we aware of any).”

Sally Copley, director of policy campaigns and partnerships at the Alzheimer’s Society, said the report showed how “utterly unfair” the social care assessment process could be, and how often people living with dementia have their rights breached.

“We’ve seen a steep rise in people contacting us over the last year, and heard shocking reports about assessors not even having a basic knowledge of dementia,” she said. “We’ve also heard of people whose lives have been put on hold, while they go through courts to reverse wrong decisions – an unimaginable strain on top of living with dementia.”

‘Not what the Care Act intended’

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK said: “Older people and their families have often fought hard to get their care package and then some find it is reduced or in the worst cases taken away entirely.”

She added: “Support is routinely being reduced to the essentials, rather than focusing on what the Care Act intended – improving people’s wellbeing, dignity and independence.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Older people should receive the support they need to live healthy and independent lives. Councils have a legal duty to assess people’s needs and, subject to their financial circumstances, provide support.

“We have provided local authorities with access to up to £3.6 billion this year for adult social care,” the spokesperson said, adding that the government would soon set out, via its much-delayed green paper, plans for a sustainable future.

You can read the full report here: Unmet Needs – Improper Social Care Assessments for Older People in England

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9 Responses to Government must introduce social care assessment oversight to safeguard service user rights, study argues

  1. shaun monk January 10, 2019 at 1:07 pm #

    What would benefit this whole area would for budget decisions to be made with the service user and or representatives present in the room with the budget holder and for any decision to be confirmed in writing by the budget holder not the social worker. The service user is entitled to a copy of the care act assessment, why not the budget decision when a funded service is being applied for?

    • Mel January 10, 2019 at 4:17 pm #

      In the LA I work for the budget generated is integrated into the assessment, and the actual authorised budget is integrated into the support plan. It is significantly more flexible and transparent than a neighbouring LA that I was a student in though. Sadly I think there would be more pressure on my current LA to change though, as the demand is increasing but the budgets don’t seem to be increasing, at least not at the same pace. The government need to fund these services better so we have more time with people and more time for ongoing development.

  2. Martin Stevens January 10, 2019 at 3:27 pm #

    Interesting article – please would you send a link or reference to the full report?

    • Alex Turner January 10, 2019 at 5:17 pm #

      It’s linked now, thanks for reminding me.

      • Colin January 10, 2019 at 7:46 pm #

        This should come as no surprise to anybody involved with Adult Social Care…………but perhaps it does??!!

        At a Parliamentary Public Accounts Select Committee meeting on 18th July 2018 concerning the Health & Social Care interface, about 50 minutes into the meeting, a question was raised by Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown concerning the rise in unmet care needs.

        Dr Chris Wormald, Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health & Social Care – the senior civil servant in this department – responded concerning the importance of the definition of unmet need and said:

        “With the exception of one local authority in which we have intervened we don’t have any evidence that any local authority is not meeting the needs of….the floor parliament set under the Care Act.”

        This statement was not challenged in the meeting!

        I wrote to Dr Wormald at the time, with copies to Meg Hillier (Chair, Public Accounts Committee) and Sarah Wollaston (Chair of the Health & Social Care Select Commiittee), setting out what I believe the true position to be, from my own experience and from articles in Community Care Daily.

        I have not had any response to this or a further copy sent in October.

        How can the most senior civil servant in Health & Social Care be so poorly informed
        about the real world in which so many of us struggle to have our lawful needs met?

        There is no effective oversight of local authority performance whatsoever. Complaints processes are slow and weighted in the councils favour, and the Ombudsman service is slow, incredibly bureaucratic, and deals with each complaint individually.

        What is needed is a CQC-type organisation with the power to investigate local authorities and the legal muscle to force improvements.

  3. Gillian Thomas January 10, 2019 at 7:41 pm #

    I agree entirely with this report. My brain damaged son, now 39, was moved from residential care to “supported living” 12 years ago. Repeated problems with care agencies, social workers who don’t understand contract law or simple accounting – which I have studied to degree level. I have repeatedly had to remind them of their statutory duties under the Care Act. Constant changes of staff seem to be a tactic, each member of staff in turn saying they need to get to know him better before… I’ve known him for nearly 40 years, but my opinion is repeatedly ignored.

    • Colin January 11, 2019 at 11:24 am #

      Gillian

      You must remember you are not a “professional”!!

      A social worker’s “professional opinion” – after seeing the service user for perhaps an hour, sometimes without reading the file beforehand – carries much more weight!!

  4. Louise January 25, 2019 at 5:47 pm #

    Its not just Older People’s Care Services being inappropriate assessed by a ” social work ” carrying out a care needs assessment, without any prior knowledge of the individuals health issues or understand of their disability physical or mental.
    They are ment to as written in the Care Act to get a better understanding of the health conditions by getting up to date with the individuals health issues or disability prior to the assessment so that the individual carrying out the care needs assessment is aware of how patients health impacts on their daily lives, what the symptoms are, what the health condition is, and the treatment and prevention of exasperated symptoms.
    So when I asked for a care needs assessment due to my health conditions of CFS/ME and Fibromyalgia getting worse due to having severe aneamia and blood transfusions every month , and waiting for a hysterectomy to remidy the aneamia. ( I have a narcolepsy but I was not able to be formally diagnosed due to the aneamia- at this point it was 2 years having severe aneamia after my sleep clinic found I was severely aneamic after a blood test was carried out.)
    As in the Care Act states , the assessment must include the individuals parental responsibilities and their duties to care for the child is to be included.
    My assessor was rude, assumed that my house was a council house as I’m young and didn’t work. And as I stated that I struggle to get up the stairs , she suggested that I ask the council to find me another property.
    I’m registered disabled, I have been living here since 2003, when I bought the property. I was working then.
    But since having my daughter in 2010, I stopped working and devoted all my time to care for her.
    I have had no issues with managing my health, or looking after her prior to becoming severely aneamic.
    Hence asking for adult services help.
    The assessor looks at me and says ” we are not going to pay for you to just stay in bed because your too lazy to get up and take your daughter to school.”
    I was asking for help so that I can carry out my responsibilities, I wasn’t asking for someone else to do it. Such as when I’m bad, I need help to get up and walk , as even tho I can, it causes me to become very fearful of my own safety and my daughter’s so I get anxious and push through the severe pain I would be in , ensuring that I do not do anything that could cause me to fall by minimising any risk. So I did everything like cooking and tried to do all the cleaning, but would pass out on anything that raised my heart rate.
    I was missing Drs appointments as I couldn’t drive myself that far and then walk on my own , as the anemia ( 3.5hb) was causing me to struggle to breathe, my legs were swollen and rock hard , I became incontinent, my hair had fallen out, my skin was grey and sticky.
    Yet the assessor for my care needs, said that I didn’t meet the criteria.
    She did however notify children’s services.
    A year later , after I was still refused any help . I was waiting for an operation date for a total hysterectomy.
    4 -6 units a month blood transfusions, I struggled on.
    My daughter was taken into foster care as they claimed that my daughter was at risk of becoming a young carer. My health was having an impact on my ability to care for her ( I couldn’t walk her to school ) I drove instead. That was not good enough.
    So if I had been given adult social services help my daughter would not of been a risk of becoming a young carer.
    Even tho she never had to help me with any thing, I did everything for her. As that’s what you do when your a mother. You look after your child.