CSCI to review who qualifies for care services
Updated 19 March 2008
CSCI is to carry out a major review of the eligibility
criteria that councils use to decide whether or not a person
receives help from the council with social care
services.
We have been asked by Care Services Minister, Ivan Lewis, to
look at how the system for deciding who qualifies for support from
local councils could be improved. We aim to make recommendations on
how this system, called Fair Access to Care Services, could change
to meet the Government’s vision of more personalised social care
services.
The Minister’s request came after we launched our third annual
State of Social Care report in January. This found that there is a
sharp divide between people who do and do not qualify for social
care.
In carrying out this review we want to involve as wide a range
of people as possible, including people who use services, carers,
representatives from councils, provider, voluntary and community
organisations, researchers and other interested parties at every
stage. As part of this we will be conducting an online survey
during April and May, and will welcome responses from the public,
people who use care services and all interested parties.
We will be announcing further details of how you can get
involved very soon.
Guardian Social Care supplement
On Wednesday 19 March the Guardian newspaper published a
supplement, in association with CSCI, which discusses different
aspects of social care and the need for reform in the care
sector.
Called Care That Counts, it examines how
access, funding and services themselves need to change to make the
system fairer and affordable. It explores many of the issues around
eligibility criteria that CSCI will be looking at in our
review of the Fair Access to Care Services system.