RNIB – supporting people with sight loss
Factsheet
Preparing for a social care assessment
Introduction
The Care Act 2014 will change the way local authorities in England
deliver social care services. This factsheet is designed to help you
get the most of assessments under the new act.
Community care or social care services are provided through your
council’s social services department. Their purpose is to support
people who have a disability, or other special needs, and to
promote their independence.
You have a right to ask your council to assess your needs. The
purpose of the assessment is to find out what difficulties you are
having, so they can decide whether your needs call for a service
and if so what services they might arrange for you.
This factsheet will explain what sort of care your council might be
able to provide you with and how they decide who is eligible for
that care.
We will explain the sorts of the things which are important to let the
council know you need help with during your assessment to make
sure you get the level of social care you need.
Before you have your social care assessment, make sure you ask
your council for information about:
 the national rules (also called eligibility criteria) for deciding who
qualifies for services
 the standards you can expect from council services and who to
contact for advice
 rules for working out any charges for services
 how to complain if things go wrong.
RNIB charity numbers 226227, SC039 316 and 1109
What are social care services?
Social care services may include:
 personal care at home
 domestic help
 shopping
 meals on wheels
 services in day centres
 provision of equipment
 care in residential or nursing homes.
Whether you get any of these services depends on the outcome of
your assessment.
What is an assessment?
Your council should arrange for a social worker to look at your full
range of needs, goals and wishes. This is with the aim of
promoting your “wellbeing”, the overarching principle local
authorities must now use when making decisions about any care
they provide you.
This is done by considering your:
 personal dignity
 physical and mental health and emotional wellbeing
 control by the individual over day-to-day life
 domestic, family and personal circumstances.
The assessment should not just consider your immediate needs,
but should also look at preventing any care needs developing in
the future. The social worker should look at identifying your needs
and how these impact your wellbeing, as well as the outcomes you
wish to achieve day-to-day.
As well as social workers, assessments can also be carried out by
Rehabilitation Officers. Rehabilitation Officers are specifically
trained to work with blind and partially sighted people. They are
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able to carry out assessments and will cover the support you need
specifically in coping with your loss of sight.
An assessment should look at your needs in these areas:
 ability to prepare and eat food
 personal care, including laundry
 ability to use the bathroom
 being properly dressed
 ability to use your home safely
 maintaining a safe home such as cleaning
 keeping up family ties
 accessing work, training and education
 making use of local services, including transport
 looking after your children
If you have been recently diagnosed with sight loss your local
authority should make contact with you within two weeks of
receipt of your Certificate of Vision Impairment. If you are in need
of care and support an assessment should be arranged in a timely
manner. For more information about getting your sight loss
certified by an ophthalmologist, please call our Helpline on 0303
123 9999.
Alternatively, you can contact your local authority’s social services
team directly and ask for an assessment.
Ask how long you might have to wait for an assessment. You
should generally not have to wait longer than six weeks, so call our
Helpline on 0303 123 9999 for advice if you have been waiting
longer than this.
What happens at an assessment?
There are many different types of assessments. The most effective
type is a face-to-face assessment since it is much easier to show
the help you need in person. If you are refused a face-to-face
assessment contact us for advice.
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The assessment is usually done at your home by a social worker
or Rehabilitation Officer, although you should request a
Rehabilitation Officer attends if this is not offered since they are
likely to understand your needs better. Other specialist workers
may be involved if you have complex needs.
If you have hearing loss as well, you have a right to be visited by a
worker trained to assess the needs of people with dual sensory
loss. If you have needs other than just social care, such as housing
or health, the different organisations should work together so that
you do not have to have several different assessments.
During your assessment make sure you explain how your sight
problem affects your everyday life and independence. You can ask
for the assessment to run over more than one session if you find it
tiring and need to take a break.
If someone helps to look after you, their needs and wishes will be
taken into account through a separate Carer's Assessment. This
may or may not be provided at the same time as yours and will
identify any support needed to help them in caring tasks.
Will I get the services I need?
Your local authority will follow the Care and Support (Eligibility
Criteria) Regulations 2014, which accompany the Care Act 2014,
when assessing your needs.
Under the guidance there are national eligibility criteria all
individuals must meet to receive care from their local authority. The
three conditions of the criteria are:
1.
2.
3.
That your need is due to a physical or mental impairment
or illness
As a result of that impairment you are unable to achieve two
or more specific outcomes (we will look at what these
“outcomes” are below)
As you are unable to achieve the outcomes there is, or there
is likely to be, a significant impact on your wellbeing.
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Your need for help is only eligible if you meet all three of these
eligibility criteria conditions.
Meeting the eligible conditions
We will now look in more detail at the eligibility criteria conditions
so that you will be able to consider whether you would meet these.
What does “needs due to impairment or illness” mean?
To satisfy the first criteria you must be able to show that your care
needs arise as a direct result of your sight loss, or any other
impairments or illnesses you have.
What does “unable to achieve” mean?
It might sound strange, but “unable to achieve” does not just mean
that you cannot do something outright. You can also be considered
as “unable to achieve” an outcome if doing so causes you
significant pain or takes you much longer than if you didn’t have
any impairment. The full definitions considered in the second
criteria are:
 Unable to achieve without assistance: This includes when you
cannot do something even when help is given or you need
prompting to do it.
 Able to achieve, but this causes significant pain, distress or
anxiety: This could include concerns and worries that you have
in going out alone.
 Is able to achieve, but this endangers, or is likely to, the health
and safety of the person or others: This could include preparing
a meal as you are unable to see that food is out of date or you
burn yourself when using the cooker.
 Is able to achieve, but takes significantly longer than normal to
do so: This could include accessing letters, which you struggle
to read, the result being that you are left both physically and
mentally exhausted.
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What are the “outcomes” mentioned above?
The outcomes listed in the guidance are very specific. We have
included a table below to show the outcomes and how they might
apply to you.
Specific outcome
Managing and maintaining your
nutrition
Maintaining your personal
hygiene
Managing your toilet needs
Being appropriately clothed
Being able to make use of the
home safely
Maintaining a habitable home
environment
Developing and maintaining
family and other personal
relationships
Accessing and engaging in
work, training, education and
volunteering
Making use of necessary
facilities or services in the local
How it might apply to you
Do you have access to food and
drink and can you prepare and
eat it?
Can you wash yourself and your
clothes?
Can you access and use the
toilet?
Can you dress yourself and are
the clothes appropriate for the
weather so that you remain
healthy?
Can you enter, exit and move
around your home safely? Can
you use the stairs, the kitchen or
the bathroom?
Is your home sufficiently clean
and maintained to be
considered safe? Do you have
access to water, electricity and
gas as appropriate?
Have you become lonely and
isolated as you are unable to
maintain relationships or
because your disability stops
you forming new ones?
If you wish to undertake such
activities is something stopping
you, such as a lack of access to
facilities or a lack of support?
Can you get around your local
area and can you use the
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community, including public
transport and recreational
facilities
Carrying out any caring
responsibilities you have for a
child
services provided?
Does your disability have an
effect on your role as a parent if
you have children?
Remember, to meet the second eligibility criteria you have to be
unable to meet two or more of these outcomes.
What does “significant impact on your wellbeing” mean?
If you meet the eligibility criteria, your “wellbeing” is a principle
which is meant to guide the decisions your local authority make in
providing you with appropriate care. It includes your:
 personal dignity
 physical and mental health and emotional wellbeing
 control over your day-to-day life
 domestic, family and personal circumstances.
Whether your inability to achieve at least two of the specific
outcomes above impacts your wellbeing in a significant way is
harder to define, since there is no legal definition in the Care Act
2014 of what “significant” means. How this is interpreted will
therefore vary between local authorities, and it will probably take
some time, once people start receiving care under this new
guidance, before we are able to be clearer about what this means.
How can I get the best out of the assessment?
Before the assessment meeting, think about how your sight loss is
affecting your day-to-day life. Think about the outcomes in the
table above and how they relate to you. You should also think
about what you would like to be able to achieve if you were given
services and support.
You might want to make a note, over a week or so, of the
difficulties you have with day-to-day activities, and of times when
your sight problem prevents you doing something. You should also
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list if you have an accident or were put at risk because you do not
have the support you need.
Make sure you get a copy of your council's information leaflet(s)
about social care assessment and eligibility criteria. The Care Act
guidance clearly states that all information should be in accessible
formats, including on your council's website. You can then think
about how your difficulties fit with the eligibility criteria.
The following list suggests areas where someone with a sight
problem might need some support in relation to the specific
outcomes already listed. You might think of different examples
yourself; everyone’s circumstances are different.
Some common issues to think about
Managing and maintaining nutrition
Do you have difficulties in preparing and/or eating food and drink?
Examples of this maybe:
 finding cutlery, pots and pans and ingredients
 peeling and chopping vegetables
 boning meat or fish
 checking “use by” dates on packages or spotting mould on
foods
 safely heating oil and boiling water
Maintaining personal hygiene
Do you need help with managing personal care and hygiene? For
instance, with:
 getting in and out of the bath or shower
 checking your cleanliness
 shaving or putting on make up
 washing, drying and styling your hair
 cutting your fingernails and toenails
 getting in and out of bed, especially during the night
 washing, drying and ironing clothes
 changing bed linen
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Managing toilet needs
Do you experience difficulties with:
 getting on and off of the toilet
 using the toilet
Being appropriately clothed
Do you have any problems in:
 choosing clean clothes that match and are appropriate for the
weather
 fastening buttons, tying shoelaces, making sure clothes are not
being worn inside out
Being able to make use of the home safely
Are you able to enter and move around your home safely?
 Is your home suited to your needs? Do you need advice about
accommodation, including any adaptations your home might
need such as improved lighting, guide rails, or changes to the
kitchen?
 Do you need assistance to access your home such as braille
markings in the communal lift, or guide strips on steps to the
building?
Maintaining a habitable home environment
Is your home clean and safe from dangers and hazards? Do you
need help with:
 keeping kitchen surfaces and appliances clean and hygienic
 washing up, drying and storing crockery, cutlery, glasses and
cookware
 clearing away uneaten food and taking rubbish outside
 clearing up breakages or spills
 sweeping and vacuuming floors
 installing and maintaining smoke alarms, intruder alarms and
domestic appliances
 general household maintenance (eg changing light bulbs,
replacing fuses)
 maintaining a safe environment (eg making sure there are no
loose carpets to trip on or obstacles to bump into)
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 adjusting your central heating, hot water temperature controls
and ventilation
 controlling lighting and domestic appliances
 maintaining your privacy (eg drawing curtains, locking doors)
 responding to emergencies
Developing and maintaining family and other personal
relationships
Is your sight loss causing difficulties with keeping in contact with
people? Are you struggling with:
 living alone
 maintaining family or domestic roles
 keeping in touch with friends and family
 the death or illness of a spouse, relative or carer
 the death or loss of a guide dog
Do you feel like your disability is making you social isolated?
Accessing and engaging in work, training, education and
volunteering
Is your sight loss making it difficult for you to:
 find voluntary work in the community
 look for a new job, because you recently lost your previous job
because of your sight loss
 cope with changes to your education, which has been disrupted
due to your sight loss
Making use of necessary facilities or services in the local
community including public transport and recreational
facilities
Are you unable to get around safely on your own outdoors? For
instance, when out and about, do you have difficulties:
 crossing the road
 avoiding obstacles and tripping or falling in the street
 using public transport (eg reading timetables, finding the right
train
 platform or bus stop, finding a seat) or hailing a taxi
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





reading street signs
asking for assistance when you are lost
going to pubs, restaurants, sports events and theatres
taking part in religious worship
avoiding traffic accidents
coping with disorientation after moving house
Do you need information and advice about using transport,
including local concessions and schemes? Are you able to get out
to do your own shopping? Can you get to local shops and facilities,
visit friends or attend social activities or classes?
Carrying out any caring responsibilities the adult has for the
child
Are you able to carry out your caring responsibilities, such as
parenting for your own child or babysitting for others?
You may also care for sick or disabled family member and friends.
If you do, then a carers’ assessment maybe appropriate. Contact
Carers UK for more information on carers’ assessment. Similarly if
someone is already providing some care for you, they are also
entitled to a carers’ assessment.
Other issues to highlight
Below are some other issues that you should also highlight to the
individual undertaking your care assessment.
Equipment and adaptations
Would special equipment help you to manage everyday tasks?
Your need for equipment (called “community equipment”) should
be included in the assessment. Your local authority should supply
you with any aids or equipment you need which costs less than
£1,000.
Communication
 Do you need a radio and CD player, to help you with leisure and
accessing information?
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 Do you need extra help because you have hearing loss or are
deafblind?
 Do you have problems with reading utility bills, labels on food,
cleaning products, medicine bottles, text messages or reading
and replying to personal mail?
 Would you benefit from access to a computer with internet
access, or a reading machine or CCTV?
Social and leisure activities
Do you have difficulties with, for instance:
 reading for pleasure
 gardening
 needlework, knitting or sewing
 painting, writing or other artistic or cultural activities
 watching television and setting a video recorder
 identifying tapes and compact discs
 arranging a holiday
Your health
Do you have another disability or a health problem which affects
your daily life? Do you have difficulties in staying healthy or
managing medical conditions, for example:
 identifying the correct tablets to take
 measuring the correct dosage of drugs and medicines
 reading the instructions on medicine bottles
 using eye drops
 managing serious conditions such as diabetes (e.g. testing
blood sugar and urine, injecting insulin)
 taking enough exercise and keeping fit
Would you like to talk to someone about adjusting to your
disability, or do you feel you need some emotional support? This
might be if you have a further deterioration in your physical or
mental health, you have additional disabilities or health needs or
are discharged from hospital.
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Planning your care
Once you have had your assessment, you should be as involved in
developing and shaping your care plan as much as you can; your
local authority will assume that you will play a strong role in
planning it. However, you can choose to have less of a role in
planning your care if you like.
The local authority’s role in care planning should ideally be just
writing up the document and signing it off to ensure it meets all the
needs that have been identified.
Your local authority will provide you with clear information on the
cost of your care and support; this is termed your personal budget.
Your local authority will also ask whether you want to control your
personal budget yourself, via direct payments, and they will explain
how this works.
Supporting your needs
There are a number of ways that your local authority can support
you needs. This could include, but is not limited to:
 providing reablement or prevention services
 putting you in touch with services provided by voluntary or
community organisations
 providing you with a personal budget to buy services to meet
your needs
Your final plan should include:
 the needs identified by the assessment
 how your needs meet the eligibility criteria conditions
 what needs your local authority are going to meet and how
 under what outcome the need is being provided
 if you are a carer, what you want to achieve regarding work,
education and leisure
 your personal budget (how much money will be provided)
 information and advice on how to reduce your needs and to
prevent future needs developing
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 if you receive direct payments, how much and when you will
receive these.
Help that is not provided
You may have some needs that your local authority will not
provide. These are referred to as either “ineligible needs” or
“unmet needs”.
If you have needs that are unmet then your local authority must
give you a written explanation (in a format which is accessible for
you) of the reason for its decision. This should be written for you
personally, addressing your individual unmet needs, and not a
standard template they send to others. It should also include
information and advice on how you can reduce or delay your
needs in the future, such as highlighting local community
organisations that may be able to help.
If you do receive some support, your care plan should include the
information on your unmet needs in the same document.
Financial assessment
Any assessment of your financial situation, in relation to charges
for services, should be carried out promptly after the assessment
of your need for care. It should not affect your right to an
assessment or your eligibility against the criteria. For further
information on charges your local authority has requested you pay,
please see our “Challenging charges for community care services”
factsheet.
Care Review
One your care plan has been finalised, if your local authority wants
to reduce or withdraw a service from you it must first undertake a
review of your care needs. To not do so maybe unlawful.
Remember that you can also ask for a review if your needs
change.
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Further information
RNIB Helpline is your direct line to the support, advice and
products you need to remain independent. We’ll help you to find
out what’s available in your area and beyond, both from RNIB and
other organisations including Action for Blind People.
Whether you want to know more about your eye condition, buy a
product from our shop, join our library, find out about possible
benefit entitlements, be put in touch with a trained counsellor, or
make a general enquiry about living with sight loss, we’re only a
call away.
Tel: 0303 123 9999
Email: helpline@rnib.org.uk
We are ready to answer your call Monday to Friday 8.45am to
5.30pm. Outside these times leave us a message and we’ll get
back to you as soon as possible.
The factsheet is not an authoritative statement of the law, and is
for general guidance only.
Please let us know if you use a language other than English. We
will try to arrange a telephone interpreting service.
RNIB Legal Rights Service
February 2015
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