Age needs one voice. Now it has:
Age UK is the new force combining Age Concern England and
Help the Aged in England.
The new force combining &
We don't always need someone else to arrange social care support for us - this is known, quite simply, as self-directed support. We have put together some help and advice around relevant legislation‚ the requirements of local authorities‚ current limitations and practical guidance.
As there is no new legislation on which the government’s ‘personalisation’ policy has been based, it is necessary to show its legal foundations in the development of direct payments legislation and related guidance, and to emphasise that existing rights to social care provision have not changed. This includes your right to be able to make informed choices whilst receiving the necessary levels of safeguarding from risks.
Self directed assessment and support planning require appropriate information, advice and ongoing support to enable you to experience the overall aim of greater choice and control over service provision and funding arrangements.
You should not feel pressed into taking on more responsibility than you feel is necessary with regard to the planning and funding of your care package and you should be assisted to make arrangements that best suit your capacity and aims.
If you are likely to self fund your service provision you can still receive an assessment and advice about how to meet your needs.
Download the Self-directed support: Direct Payments and Personal Budgets factsheet (PDF 361 KB)
Download the Finding help at home factsheet (PDF, 246 KB)
Download the LA assessment for community care services factsheet (PDF, 337 KB)
Set your location to see what Age UK offers in your local area.
Sign up for our free email newsletter.
Factsheet that explains the system of self-directed support in social care.
Factsheet giving advice on finding help at home.
Factsheet on the local assessment for community care services.
Downloads
A download is a document (like a research report, a leaflet, or an application form) that can be transferred from our website to your computer. You can download a file, view it on your screen, print it, or save it to your computer.
PDF stands for ‘portable document format’.
Most downloads on this website are PDFs. We use this format to ensure that the document looks the same on everyone’s computer (website pages, by contrast, appear differently depending on how people have set their computer up).
Computers use a program called Adobe Acrobat Reader to download PDFs. If you try clicking on a link to download a PDF and it doesn’t work, you will need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader onto your computer.
The process is quite straightforward and is free.
PDFs cannot be changed. If you need to be able to type into a downloaded document (for example, if we are offering a letter template that you need to put your name on) we will provide it as a Microsoft Word document rather than a PDF. You can then download it, type into it and save it to your computer.
Downloads will open on your computer in a new browser window.
Inside this window (below all your web browser menus), there will be a toolbar with options for you to print or save the document.
Close the browser window to return to the Age UK website.
We have made every effort to make our PDFs accessible to screen readers. Here is an overview of your accessibility options available in Acrobat Reader. Please ensure that you have downloaded the latest version of Acrobat Reader from the Adobe Reader website to ensure that they are included in your version of the programme.
You can use Adobe Reader to read a PDF out loud with the following shortcut keys:
You can also convert a PDF into a web page by following these steps:
You can convert a PDF document into a text file for use with other software and hardware such as Braille printers by opening the PDF and choosing ‘Save as text’ from the File menu.
Set the appearance of this website so you can read it more easily
To see information relating to Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales set your preference below: