General > Service Delivery - Getting Started

Service Delivery - Getting Started

Assessment and Delivery of your Domiciliary Care

The steps followed in our service delivery process:

• Initial referral
• Assessing the Need
• Assessing the Risks
• Service User Plan of Care
• Reassessing the need and reviewing the care

These steps are described in detail below.

Initial Referral

When you decide that you or a relative needs Domiciliary Care there are two ways to put it in place:

• Contact Castle Care directly or alternatively,
• You can be referred to Castle Care by the Social Services Department from which you initially sought help and which has accepted at least some financial responsibility.

In either case, information about you which is passed to us, will be dealt with sensitively and in confidence. Before providing any services we will need to talk with you as the person who is going to be receiving the service, perhaps with your carer if there is one, and with the social services department which contacted us. At the very outset we need to be sure that the Domiciliary Support Services we provide are going to be suitable for you.

Assessing the Need

If someone comes to us from a Social Services Department, the Local Authority care manager will have carried out an assessment of what you need before deciding that Domiciliary Care is going to meet your needs. A summary of this information, usually called a needs assessment, will have been passed to us.

If you have approached us direct, we need to make an assessment ourselves. To do this we will need to ask you quite a lot of questions, and probably to seek information from your carer, your doctor, and any other specialists who know about your health and needs. The assessment will be carried out by trained staff.

We hope that you do not find the process by which we get to know your needs too intrusive. We want to build up a full picture and we will do this as quickly and tactfully as possible. Remember, all the information will be treated confidentially. Our aim is always to make sure that we understand what you need and what your preferences are about services, so that we can respond in ways which really suit you.

Assessing the Risks

If you have decided to have care provided in your own home, you will know that it carries some risk. The care worker is unlikely to be with you all the time so there will not be the same level of support, as you would receive in, for example, a residential home. On the other hand you retain your independence and many people find that, on balance, a measure of risk is worthwhile. Nevertheless, we want to be sure that everybody concerned understands the risks and has thought about them responsibly and that the risks to be taken are not unreasonable or unnecessary. So, with you, we carry out a risk assessment, weighing up the risks to be taken with the advantages, and if it seems appropriate we might make suggestions as to how unnecessary risks can be minimized.

Service User Plan of Care

Having assessed your needs and the risks, we then – again with help from you and your carer – prepare a plan for the Domiciliary Care we expect to deliver. This is called the Service User Plan of Care because you as the service user really are central to it. It will specify the services we will provide, with details like timings of care worker visits and the special tasks to be performed, and will state what we all hope to be the objectives of providing the service and how we plan to achieve those objectives.

Reassessing the need and reviewing the care

Over time your needs may change. You may need more or less care, the type or pattern of service may have to be varied, new risks may become apparent. So, again with your help, we will keep your needs under review and take decisions about the care accordingly. If at any time there are aspects about the care, which you would like to change, let us know.