Assessments for adult carers

What is a Carer's Assessment?

An assessment means collecting information about you and your life and talking with you about the difficulties you have and how they affect your wellbeing. This helps us all to understand your situation, what your needs are and how to plan for the future. It is a very important process and should not just be seen as a way to get care and support services; sometimes there other ways to help you and often just having the time to consider your situation can be very helpful for a carer.

Listed below are some of the things we will look at during your assessment so before you contact us or complete an online self assessment, you might like to think about them. It might help to write things down.

• Who (if anyone) you would like to be involved in your assessment
• What you are finding difficult and how this is affecting you in your daily life
• Your caring role, how you manage and whether it is preventing you from doing things that you want or need to do
• Your health, how it affects you, and whether your caring role is affecting your health
• Looking after yourself and staying safe (eating well, getting enough sleep, getting a break, caring safely, feeling safe)
• Planning for difficulties and emergencies
• Things you enjoy doing
• Things that are important to you
• Support already available to you – what’s working well (e.g. help from family and friends, GP, equipment and aids, paid carers)
• Anything that has worked well in the past
• What would you like to achieve / do more of?

Who can have a carer's assessment?

Any adult who looks after another adult and may need help to enable them to continue to care can have a carers' assessment under the Care Act 2014.

Any adult who may have needs for care and support can have also have their own assessment. The assessment must involve any carers who are providing support and the carer's needs will be considered at the same time. This is called a 'combined carer's assessment'. A carer can also have a separate carer's assessment.

Parent carers who look after a disabled child, and young carers can have an assessment under the Children and Families Act. We are in the process of updating our information for parent carers but in the meantime please contact the All Age Disability Service.

What if I don't want an assessment?

You can refuse to have an assessment but we may still need to talk to you if we are concerned about your safety and wellbeing.

We can still give you information and advice about arranging your own support and accessing activities and groups in your community. If you are offered an assessment but refuse this time, you could still change your mind at a later date.

Before you decide whether to have an assessment or not, read further to find out more.