Adult social care eligibility criteria - innovations and developments: report

Rethinking eligibility project

In the wake of the IRASC report, a range of voluntary sector agencies representing supported people, carers and social workers came together to consider how they could influence the proposed review of eligibility criteria. They hosted an online conference to start the conversation in June 2022. Further discussion followed between COSLA and the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government commissioned a short-term project from April to July 2023, to include consideration of wider factors influencing access to social care, and which informs this report. A separate piece of work is being planned by the Scottish Government to provide insights on the scale and nature of need and unmet need for adult social care support and this will be an important addition to the knowledge base informing decisions about next steps.

Approach

The contents of this report are informed by work undertaken in collaboration with various others, including several steering group members:

• An online workshop on 22^nd June 2022, involving 100 participants representing: supported people, unpaid carers, social work and social care practitioners and managers, finance and senior officers from HSCPs, representatives from national health and social care bodies. The report from that event is appended to this one along with the four case studies presented on the day (appendices B - E)
• A brief scan of relevant policy and research literature, as detailed in the references
• Attendance at an online webinar sharing research findings on the limits to progress in social care reform across the 4 countries of the UK (June 2023)
• Participation in the Human Learning Systems conference in Newcastle (June 2023)
• Collaboration with partners to ensure participation of supported people, carers and practitioners. This included events/meetings in June and July 2023 (aligned with the NCS co-design process) as follows:
• Event hosted by Coalition of Carers in Scotland (COCIS) (carers/carer organisations)
• Event hosted by Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) (carer leads)
• Social Work Scotland (SWS) practice forum (SDS leads)
• SWS webinar (diverse stakeholders)
• 2 meetings hosted by the People Led Policy Panel (PLPP) including one on access to social care, and one on eligibility as part of the NCS co-design arrangements
• The New Models for Learning Disability Day Support Collaborative, hosted by HIS, supported by (National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTI) and others, who shared their findings with us
• Regular meetings with a diverse steering group and individual meetings with all steering group members, as identified in appendix A
• Interviews with an additional 20 stakeholders, mainly from national bodies and representatives of supported people and carers.

Throughout these activities, we asked colleagues to share positive examples of navigating current challenges. Our case studies and examples in the main describe initiatives that did not start out to address eligibility criteria – rather they show how various agencies have worked differently to continue to support people despite increasing complexity and demand and tightening budgets. There will be many other examples in Scotland.

As noted earlier, there are differences in the application of eligibility criteria and the wider social care contexts across the four UK countries. Therefore, while this project includes learning from England and Wales, the main focus was engagement with diverse stakeholders in Scotland.