National Care Service - realising rights and responsibilities: regional forums - easy read findings summary

What we learned about rights and responsibilities

People said they would like to have a charter explaining their rights. The charter is a list of your rights and information on what to do if you do not think your rights are being met.

We learned a lot from the events and some of the main topics are below.

Accessibility

People said that the charter should be written in plain and simple language. It also should be accessible in different formats.

We asked people what sections from the charter are too hard to understand. People told us that:

• The information on going to Court was confusing.
• Words such as ‘integrated’ and ‘collaboration’ can be difficult for some people to understand.

• ‘Community health’ and ‘self-directed support’ can be hard to understand. The charter should explain these words.

We will change the charter to include what people told us at the events. This will help to make the charter accessible to all.

People said they want:

• The charter to be as short as possible and in different formats.
• To have posters, leaflets or booklets explaining the charter.

We know people want the charter to be made available in Easy Read, Braille, BSL and other languages.

We will work to make the charter simple and easy to understand but keep important information.

Once we have finished the charter we will make different accessible formats and translate the charter into other languages.

Charter detail and language

People want the charter to be clear, so it cannot be misunderstood. This means people know what to expect from the services.

At the events people said words such as ‘may happen’ or ‘where possible’ are not clear. People asked us to change them and give examples.

We will change as many of these words as we can, but we might not be able to change all of the words. This is because if we change the words, it might tell people the wrong information.

People told us to provide more information on:

• how to complain and include how long it takes to make a complaint

• what National Care Services are
• who works for the National Care Service

We will work on the introduction and complaints parts and provide more information on National Care Services.

Rights in the charter

We wanted to hear from people about the rights in the charter. We also wanted to know whether there was anything missing or things that people disagreed with.

Most people agreed with the rights. A small number of people felt some rights were missing.

Young carers said that the right to breaks from caring should be included in the charter.

We will continue to work on adding more rights in the charter. We will add rights people thought were missing if possible.

Some people said the rights in the charter could be clearer to understand. People suggested we could use real life examples.

People in rural areas told us about the barriers they face when accessing:

• social care
• social work
• community health services
• transport
• internet connected devices

People told us to include this in the ‘Equality, Dignity and Respect’ part of the charter. This would explain that people should have equal rights in rural and urban areas.

Some people said the part on the ‘right to family and private life’ could include information on needs of family and privacy for people accessing services.

We will improve the charter to include the needs of rural communities and families.