What is Community Care?
In this guide:
Community Care is the area of law that deals with the needs for care and services that vulnerable, sick, disabled and elderly people have.
Some of the types of cases that Fisher Jones Greenwood LLP deals with are summarised below:
The list is endless.
What are Community Care Services?
Community care services can range widely, they are services to meet a person’s needs, some examples are provided below:
- Residential accommodation, i.e. residential care homes, nursing homes, hospices
- Home help
- Support with mobility
- Meals on wheels
- Adaptations to the home and equipment, like wheelchair ramps, sit down baths/showers, hoists, etc
- Counselling
- Drop in centres
- The provision of services for children with disabilities and their families
- Support with independent or daily tasks living i.e. help with budgeting, shopping, making day to day decisions, housework, chiropody, etc.
- For carers, respite care and additional help can be included.
The list goes on, but effectively covers any service for which there is a need, which arises from disability, age or illness. Not all services that a person needs will be provided, it must first be decided whether or not their needs meet the eligibility criteria for services to meet those needs.
What is Intermediate Care?
The National Health Service and the Local Authority can arrange a package of care designed at rehabilitating a person for up to a maximum of six weeks. It can include residential accommodation, additional help, support and therapy. The aim of intermediate care is to avoid a prolonged stay in hospital or other in patient care, to rehabilitate the person and maximise their independence to enable them ideally to return to living at home.
Intermediate care must be provided free of charge.
What is Continuing Care?
The dispute surrounding the cost of care and who must bear that cost has become a fairly regular feature in the news, and has been featured in depth by the news programme Panorama (link).
The National Health Services Responsibilities Directions (2004) provide a definition of ‘continuing care’ as:
“Continuing care means care provided over an extended period of time to a person aged 18 or over to meet physical or mental health needs which have arisen as the result of a disability, accident or illness. It may require services from the NHS and/or social care. It can be provided in a range of settings, from an NHS hospital, to a nursing home or residential home, and people's own homes. Continuing care should be distinguished from:
- intermediate care, which has specific outcomes for rehabilitation, reablement or recuperation, and is provided for a time-limited period, normally up to six weeks;
- transitional (or interim) care, where the care setting is temporary and different from where people are expected to receive any continuing care they need.
‘Continuing NHS health care’ describes a package of care arranged and funded solely by the NHS. It does not include the provision by local councils of any social services... ‘Continuing health and social care’ describes a package of care that involves services from both the NHS and social care.”
Effectively, continuing care can include the entire package of health care and social care services, provided over a long term or extended period. This can be provided in the home, hospital, residential care, nursing care or in a hospice. Where the care is provided does not determine a person’s eligibility for continuing care. Continuing care may be funded wholly by the National Health Service if the person is eligible for fully funded continuing care from the NHS.
Next: Health Care or Social Care?