Hello, in my local authority there has been a new Support Needs Assessment eform created and the Personalisation Review form has been discontinued entirely. The rationale behind this was that the review form conflated the assessment of need with the provision of service and did not offer a Resource Allocation Group scoring facility within it and that this was backed by legislation and guidance.
I am trying to find out what the legislation and guidance clearly states about the difference between assessment, reassessment and review and in what circumstances a review can be conducted without a full reassessment of need.
Whilst I understand that a significant change in circumstance or need for an individual would require a new full reassessment of need, the following examples involve neither of these but now require onerous and time consuming documentation:
Keeping the total numbers of hours in a service - and the service delivery - the same but re-writing support plans so that there is clarity on what is expected to be delivered by providers / expected from the LA / understood by proxies.
When the LA discovers it has been overfunding a service which no one had picked up due to the complexities of finance columns as it relates to shared supported accommodation services - three review form were written which kept the amount of actual staffing delivered exactly the same but ensured that what we were funding matched this.
Applying to the Independent Living Fund for more 1:1 support hours for individuals but not altering any other parts of a care plan - this comes at no cost to the LA, has great benefits to the individual and is much easier to do in a review document than through a full reassessment of need - which is putting people off applying for the ILF as it already can be a difficult process in terms of matching up the requirements of the LA / ILF and is made more complicated having to do a new SNA for everyone who has a new ILF award.
Changing ratios of support when someone moves into a service - some void variations are written into care plans, some are stand-alone documents. If there is a completely new person moving in (due to an extra room in the service) so the only change, for example, that had to be made across all of the existing residents are changes to nightshift split / costs, understandably this is much easier through a review type document rather than full SNA’s.
In one current example there will be large savings made across a household as a whole by having someone moving in, but one individuals support plan needs to increase by 3.5 hours due to them being originally underfunded for the support that they receive in practice and this will require a new full reassessment of need. Again, the actual support hours are the same but due to underfunding the provider should have been paid more.
These sorts of under / over funding services are common on Duty and they usually don’t result in any change in the delivery of service but require a new reassessment of need rather than a new eform.
These changes mean everything is slower, more bureaucratic, frustrating for proxies, more complicated for providers, disincentivise money saving moves like applying to the ILF, and impede timeously and proportionate reviews to eforms and has increased the waiting list for individuals being assessed.
I am trying to fund what the legislation / guidance says about reviews where there has not been a change of need / circumstance.
The Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013: Statutory Guidance 2014 Section 6 (page 81 - 82) states that:
‘A significant change to a supported person’s needs or a request for a further assessment should prompt a review of the person’s needs. In addition, the supported person and/or the authority can also request a review of the choice of options under the 2013 Act…However, a review of a person’s choice under the 2013 Act can take place without a detailed review of needs. The person may decide that they do not wish to continue with the option that they have chosen’
This seems to state that the only circumstance that detailed review of need does not need to take place is for a change of choice of the options under the 2013 Act, but this would be lacking as it does not take into account the range of possible changes that, as above, detail why a review should not require a full reassessment of need.
Could anyone assist as to how they understand legislation and guidance in this issue. I assume that not every single local authority has not option but to use a full reassessment of need to make even the most minor financial adjustment through an eform?
Thanks very much