Introduction
"Social care" support for ill or disabled adults in
Northumberland is operated by Northumberland Care Trust under its
partnership with the County Council. (Support for working age
adults with mental health problems is operated by the
Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Trust, under a separate
partnership, but closely coordinated with the Care Trust
service).
On this page you can find an introduction to the way we arrange
support, and a series of information sheets explaining further
details. There are also links to useful information materials
produced elsewhere.
Over the next two years we are looking to transform the way we
provide services and support. This aims to benefit adults who are
eligible for social care from Northumberland County Council by
giving people more choice and control, and a personal budget for
the support they receive. This is our Putting
People First programme and is part of a major national change
programme for adult social care aimed at improving support. Please
note this link will take you to pages on Northumberland Care Trust
website. Use this link for more
information on Northumberland Care Trust’s services.
Self-directed support
People’s lives shouldn’t have to stop because
they are disabled or have a long-term illness. We aim to make
sure that people can get the support they need to enable them to
continue to live in the way they want.
We offer two kinds of support arrangement:
- Crisis support for people who
urgently need help after a health crisis or a serious
accident.
- Self-directed support for
people with longer-term support needs.
Crisis support focuses on making sure that
people’s immediate needs are met, and on helping them to recover
and become independent. Many people only need crisis
support.
Self-directed support aims to put people in
charge of their own support arrangements. People are offered
a personal budget which they are encouraged to
manage themselves, or with help from family and friends, though we
can also make arrangements on people's behalf. We set the
amount of the personal budget based on a shared
assessment.
Personal budgets can be used flexibly to
overcome the obstacles which illness or disability put in the way
of living in the way you choose. For instance:
- If you need support with day-to-day tasks, or if
you need someone to be on hand to make sure you are safe, you can
use a personal budget to employ someone or to make arrangements so
that people you know can help you.
- If you need support to take part in social,
leisure or educational activities, you can use a personal budget to
arrange that.
- If family members or friends who usually provide
you with support need a break, you can use a personal budget to
make whatever arrangements are necessary.
You will need to agree with us a
support plan setting out how you will use your
personal budget. We will check that this is safe and legal. We can
help people to draw up their support plans, or if you want you can
do that yourself.
We will review your personal
budget and your support plan at intervals to check whether any
changes are needed.
Most people have to pay a
contribution towards their personal budget. The
amount of your contribution will depend on your financial
circumstances. Some people will be assessed as being able to pay
all the costs of their support themselves -- but we will still
offer them help and advice if they want it.
If your disability or illness does not cause
you any problems in critical areas of life, you may not be
eligible for a personal budget. However we may
still be able to give you advice about services and equipment which
might help you, and about other possibilities such as
adaptations to your home (which you may be able to
get financial help for).
If your disability or illness is so serious
that you cannot realistically stay in your own home, we can help
you to move into supported housing or a
care home.
We keep information about people we arrange
help for in our files and on computer records. This
information is shared with other people who need to know it to make
arrangements for your support, but is otherwise kept strictly
confidential. Ask any of our staff if you want to know what
information is being held, or if you would like some information
not to be shared.
Information sheets about support for ill or disabled people
in Northumberland
The list of information sheets which are
currently available or in preparation is below. We are adding
these to this page as they are completed.
Please send
us an email if you would like copies of any of these
information sheets in another format, such as tape or Braille,
or if you would like them translated into another language.
The sheets with an asterix next to
them (S1 to S5 and 2-4) are those which we now aim to give to
everyone when they first ask us for support.
- Information Sheet S4* - Safeguarding
Adults
Word
(standard) Word (large
print)
- Information Sheet S5* - contributing towards your
personal budget (from 12 April
2010)
Word
(standard) Word (large
print)
- Information Sheet S7 - Changing your support using
a personal budget (updated 12 May
2010)
Word
(standard) Word (large
print)
- Information sheet 8 - help with
moving into a care home
Documents to follow
- Information sheet 11 - person-centred
planning for people with a learning disability
PDF
(standard)
Related information sheets
The information sheets below are
about separate Care Trust services which are linked to
care management.
Information sheet - community rehabilitation
service
Word
(standard)
Additional Northumberland information
Additional information to sheet
2 (your entitlement to help): The full guidance document used
by care managers to decide about eligibility for help is also on this site.
Carers
To find out more about support for carers, click here.
Newsletters
Hearing Matters is a newsletter for people in Northumberland
who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Notes for care managers and support staff
Each service user should be provided at the
time of their initial assessment with a folder containing as many
of the above information sheets as are relevant to their
circumstances. The basic set of information which should
always be included is:
- sheets S1-S5, and sheets 2-4 (the sheets
asterisked in the list above). (Only the information sheets
themselves need to be in the basic pack, not any additional
information shown in the list above).
Information published by the Government
Listed below are some particularly useful
Government leaflets and publications which can be viewed or
downloaded from the internet. The Government now publishes a
great deal of information electronically, and this list does not
aim to be comprehensive. These links will take you off our
site.
Useful information from other organisations
We will be adding to this page links to some
of the most useful information materials produced by
non-Government organisations. Most of
these links will take you off our site.
- Northumberland
Golden Guide - a comprehensive information guide to services
and support for older people in Northumberland, produced in
association with Northumberland Council, Northumberland Care Trust
and Age Concern.
Local organisations
Shelter, based in Newcastle, provide an
advice
service for people with housing problems (leaflet in Adobe
Acrobat format).
National organisations
Contact details for services
If you want to contact us, the adult
social care contacts page lists addresses and phone numbers of
all local offices.
