Facts about FACS 2010: A guide to Fair Access to Care Services

Glossary of terms and websites

Adult seeking or using services

Any individual who has approached or been referred to a social care organisation requesting services or support of any type.

Carers

Family members, friends or neighbours who support another person with social care needs.

Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000

This Act sets out the responsibility of CASSRs to provide an assessment of the risks to a carer's role and the power to provide support either directly to a carer or through a service to the adult needing or using support. The assessment framework for carers closely models that for adults seeking or using services, but focuses on the risk to the sustainability of the caring role. The 2004 Carers (Equality) Act requires assessments to address employment, education, training, recreation and leisure. Parents of disabled children or young people can also ask for an assessment where the local authority is clear that they have a responsibility to the child or the young person and their family.

Link: Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000

CASSRs

Councils/local authorities with responsibilities to provide or commission social care services for adults who are living within the council's boundaries

Centres for Independent Living (CILs)

Grassroots organisations controlled by disabled people using services or managing their own support that provide information, services and peer support to adults who want to consider, or are using, direct payments, personal budgets and other methods to maintain control over their own lives. They apply social model approaches, and an integrated view of support needs. They can provide advice and support on recruiting and employing personal assistants, payroll and financial management, dealing with employment problems and establishing tailored arrangements for independent living.

Link: Centres for Independent Living (CILs)

Common assessment framework (CAF)

CAF for adults is being piloted in a number of local authorities. It provides a framework for the professionals involved to integrate their assessments and provides the basis for a care plan that addresses the outcomes that interventions aim to achieve in relation to:

Electronic systems in health and social care are linked and named professionals can share information.

Link: Common assessment framework (CAF)

Common assessment framework (CAF) for children in need and their families

This is different from the CAF for adults. The CAF for children in need and their families provides a systematic basis for collecting and analysing information to support professional judgements about how to help children and families in the best interests of the child, including how to keep them safe. The assessment has safeguarding and promoting the child's welfare at its centre and evidence is collected in relation to:

Link: Common assessment framework (CAF) for children in need and their families

Communities

Groups of people who share common interests. These may occur because they live in the same geographical area, and the impact of any changes or loss of resources or amenities in the place where they live affects their daily lives and those of their family. Alternatively, the shared interest may arise because the individuals have issues or ways of life in common although they may be geographically spread, nationally and internationally. For example, the deaf community, faith groups, different black and minority ethnic groups, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, share a history and a heritage, and often a shared experience of living in poverty or facing exclusion, discrimination and harassment.

Complaints: 2009 Local Authority and NHS Complaints Regulations

These regulations provide a unified system for complaints for local authorities and the NHS. They replace the separate systems and include a duty to cooperate in the handling of complaints. There is a statutory requirement for cooperation between the two organisations.

Link: Complaints: 2009 Local Authority and NHS Complaints Regulations

Direct payments

These are cash payments made to individuals who have been assessed as eligible for publicly funded social care support. The cash payments enable individuals to choose the support that best meets their needs and that will achieve agreed outcomes. Those who want it can receive help with handling a direct payment, and specific provision is available for those who lack capacity.

Eligibility criteria

These are set out in the FACS 2010 framework guidance. The aim is to ensure that there is fair access to services for individuals living in the same authority and, depending on the council's resources, for individuals with similar levels of social care needs in different parts of England. The criteria describe in an open and transparent way the evidence of levels of social care need that should be demonstrated during an assessment.

Eligible needs

These are the social care needs of the individual that fall into the different bands of eligibility. The bandings are: critical, substantial, moderate and low. The wording of the four bands is prescribed nationally.

Equality Bill 2009-10

This Bill brings together existing legislation and statutory instruments promoting equality and challenging discrimination on grounds of gender, disability and ethnic background. It makes comparable provision against discrimination in provision of goods and services, including health and social care services, on grounds of age, faith and sexual orientation. It creates an extended duty for the public sector to promote equality and to tackle poverty.

Link: Equality Bill 2009-10

Every Child Matters

Every Child Matters (ECM) is the policy framework for social care services to children, adolescents and families. It identified five outcomes that are most important to children and young people:

The five outcomes are universal ambitions for every child and young person whatever their background or circumstances. There is particular concern to improve outcomes for children and young people who spend time in the care system. The outcomes are mutually reinforcing. For example, children and young people learn and thrive when they are healthy, safe and engaged and the evidence is that educational achievement is the most effective route out of poverty. Improving outcomes for all children and young people underpins all of the development and work of children's trusts.

Link: Every Child Matters

General population

All adults and children living in the CASSR's boundaries.

Independence

People are able to maximise the choice and control they have over their lives, and have access to support that best fits their needs, preferences, aspirations and culture. Supportive communities contribute to people's capacity to exercise choice and control over the way they live their lives and the support they can access.

Indicative allocation

At an early stage, the person eligible for publicly funded services is told roughly how much money it is likely to cost to obtain the support that meets their needs. The approximate amount of money informs support planning. The final amount of the personal budget will only be set when there is an agreed support plan that specifies agreed outcomes that meet eligible social care needs.

Mental Capacity Act 2005

This Act provides a statutory framework for acting and making decisions on behalf of people who have been assessed as lacking capacity to make specific decisions themselves. It outlines five principles that must underpin every stage of the process. It can also be used by people who want to prepare for the time when they may lack capacity in the future. The Act sets out who can act and take decisions on behalf of an individual deemed to lack capacity, the situations in which the authority to act applies and the processes that should be followed.

Link: Mental Capacity Act 2005

NHS continuing healthcare decision support tools

A tool is set out in The National Framework for NHS continuing healthcare and NHS-funded nursing care (DH, 2009c). It is designed to ensure that assessing practitioners take into account the full range of factors relevant to reaching decisions about a person's eligibility for NHS-funded continuing care. Practitioners can use the tool to bring together and record evidence against 12 care domains or generic areas of need. These are: behaviour, cognition, psychological and emotional needs, communication, mobility, nutrition, continence, skin, breathing, altered states of consciousness and other significant care needs. Each domain is subdivided to enable the practitioner to reach a decision about whether the person's need in that domain is low, moderate, high, severe or priority.

Link: The National Framework for NHS continuing healthcare and NHS-funded nursing care (DH, 2009c).

Outcomes

These are the results a person wants to achieve through accessing their own social care or receiving social care support. The aim is to evaluate how the individual's needs impact on their independence and wellbeing in the immediate and longer term, and how to reduce or remove the blocks to achieving the results that have been agreed

Personal budgets

Individuals who are eligible to receive publicly funded social care support are allocated an agreed amount of money so that they can direct the funding to meet their needs in ways that best suit them.

Personalisation

This policy involves putting the outcomes that people want to achieve at the centre of assessment, planning, implementation and reviews. The aim is to promote the individual's wishes about the outcomes they are aiming to achieve, and the solutions that best fit how they want to maximise their independence, promote their dignity and wellbeing. These may include better access to universal services. A second component of personalisation is an emphasis on early intervention and prevention to reduce or delay the need for social care support, and providing information and advice for people who are not eligible for publicly funded social care support.

Presenting needs

The full range of issues or problems identified when an individual first contacts, or is referred to, a CASSR seeking social care support. Some or all of them may fall outside the definitions determining eligible needs.

Primary prevention

This refers to action taken at the strategic level locally, regionally and nationally to avoid problems occurring in the population. Examples include strategies to prevent obesity, alcoholism, domestic violence and to promote healthy lifestyles. Workers in adult care are mainly involved in trying to reduce the impact of problems that have already arisen, but their work is supported by action taken at the level of whole populations.

Putting People First 2007

A joint protocol on adult social care, endorsed by government departments, local authorities, cross-sector providers, professional and standards bodies, setting out a vision for the reform of adult social care services to promote personalised support, help people exercise choice and control over the way they receive support and encourage strong and supportive communities.

Link: Putting People First 2007

Resource allocation system (RAS)

A system that seeks to calculate, in a clear and rational way, how much money a person is likely to need to arrange support for their eligible needs. The system helps the person to understand how the amount of money they have been allocated was arrived at, and to use the information to make their own choices and direct the way their support is provided.

Self-assessment

Self-assessment involves the council providing information a person can use to make their own preliminary assessment of their needs, and whether and how far they are likely to equate to the local eligibility criteria. The assessment focuses on the outcomes the individual and their family/carers want to achieve in meeting their eligible needs. The assessment looks at the individual's situation as a whole, taking into account the resources in their own support networks and the needs of family members and others who provide support. The CASSR's duty to assess needs can be met though self-directed assessments which are proportionate to the person's needs and situation. The self-assessment then feeds in to the person's self-directed support plan.

Universal services

These are services that can be accessed by the general population, and include health, education, housing, training, employment, recreation and leisure, transport, community support groups and services provided in the commercial and business sector. Access to these services is not dependent on having been assessed to have eligible social care needs.

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