Welcome to this video about the Care Act
duties in relation to outcomes needs and care and support please note that we have other videos
about this topic on the SCIE website alongside with many other resources and a handout that
will support you in embedding the learning for the video today with me is Paula and my
name is Carmen we are going to explore what are needs in the context of the Care Act so Paula
what type of needs do social care practitioners come across in the performance of their duties
so they come across presenting needs and presenting needs are the ones that are
recorded in terms of the referral document for example and these are the the needs that will be
explored during the assessment process we also have assessed needs and so those are the needs
that so you know we've identified the presenting needs at the point of referral we will as part of
the assessment process have a conversation with an individual where we will explore how those
presenting needs but you know potentially impacts on a person's ability to achieve their outcomes
and then we will have eligible needs which are the needs that we put through the assessed needs
through the determination of eligibility to find out whether or not they are eligible needs
so really in a lot of occasions I mean in my experience as a social care practitioner the
presenting needs are not necessarily the assessed needs so the presenting needs are the ones that
are in the referral and could be more or less in-depth yeah sometimes are the ones that the
individual put there themselves could be the carer or the adult could be a family member
could be a neighbour could be another professional but it's kind of what alert that there is a need
for a response for social care and then you are absolutely right as a social care practitioner is
what we need to do is look at that referral look at those presenting needs and then look at okay
now we are doing the assessment process and we need to consider okay what other needs are there
and identify all the 60 needs in and around the nine areas of wellbeing that the individual has
you mentioned also about the assessed needs that the individual has and how the impact to achieve
the outcomes that is important at a determination of eligibility point of view at this point is
how they prevent them to achieve their personal outcomes so you said outcomes
but is one of the things we found having a way that practitioners use outcomes and
then it's difficult to know whether they're personal outcomes or eligibility outcomes so
during the assessment would we explore is how those needs impact the individual in achieving
their personal outcomes and we will explore in the video on outcomes what is the difference
between personal and eligibility outcomes and then a third stage will be when we have
an assessment and we identified all the needs will be to look at okay with one of those meet
the elegibility criteria so that we are very clear with needs a religible language ones not
and if any of the needs are eligible which needs are we dealing with in the super plan and with
those the local authority has the legal duty to provide a support for so that that is one
thing that is quite important and and we do find in a lot of occasions that people is
not very clear about the difference between the presenting the size and eligible and they come
together and that creates a lot of difficulty in actually complying with the law isn't it
the other thing that is there any other thing that you think people mix up and get confused
when they carry out an assessment any other terms in relation to needs what else some needs confused
with I think that we often get confused between what we under or what we should understand needs
to mean under the Care Act in that it's a legal term and it's defined and shaped under the Care
Act against what an individual thinks that they need but actually from a social care
practitioner's point of view what the individual thinks they need are actually wishes preferences
you know those sorts of things and so we do have to have really difficult conversations
with individuals around how we see things as needs being different to what they do that doesn't mean
that we're not going to listen to what their needs are and what they want because we've
got a duty to have regards to that in terms of promoting individual wellbeing in but we
do need to be very clear that our understanding of needs is from within the structure of the Care Act
but it's also and I'm thinking now about an example you know how
in laymans terms you know we sometimes said I need this yeah and really what we mean is I want this
I really will like this yeah whereas yes you're absolutely correct from social care practitioner
point of view you need has a legal content yeah so when we are assessing needs of determining
eligibility for needs it is not only we need first to define are those needs or are those
wishes or personal outcomes or aspirations and it's not always easy and but the important thing
as you explore on the assessment video is that we actually capture all that on the assessment
yeah so if the individual consider them needs we can put the individual you know explain they need
or expressed he needs or she needs and that's fine but if we consider them personal outcomes
and aspiration in our professional input in the assessment has to say in my professional
explanation based on all the evidence those are not needs but personal outcomes and making that
differentiation during the assessment process enables us to determine eligibility appropriately
because the legal duty is to meet eligible needs and have regard to personal outcomes so if we mix
them in the assessment we're not going to know what are we meeting and what we have in regard
isn't it it's going to come all muddled up correct yeah absolutely absolutely and I think as as well
as social care practitioners as well we need to be careful that we don't refer to somebody's
presenting circumstances as needs because we are not able to determine whether they are
actually needs until we've done the determination of eligibility which we can't do until we've done
the assessment of need for care and support yeah so it is very important that we just
don't talk about needs we talk about whether they present in which is what they individuals present
them themselves with yeah whether they assess would mean we have identified them you know and
acknowledge them during the assessment process or whether they are eligible which means they
meet the eligibility criteria okay thank you very much Paula for listeners please keep an
eye on the website because we have many of the videos and complementing this one we will be
having one around different types of outcomes in the context of the Care Act and one about
care and support that will bring together the needs and the outcomes thank you Paula