Dorset County Council and Adult Social Care Services use the single assessment process in conjunction with the Health Service to assess your needs. For example:

• What can you do for yourself?
• What can you do if given some help?
• What needs to be done for you?
• What help do you feel you need?
• Who helps you at the moment?
• If you have someone looking after you, what do they feel about the support and care you need?
• What is the best way of meeting your needs?

Carers can ask for their own separate assessment.

This assessment will decide what kind of help you or your carer need and whether this can be provided by Adult Social Care Services or an independent provider. Advice can be given about other organisations who might be able to help you.

If you wish to request an assessment and you are a new customer or have no current involvement with us, please contact the Adult Access Team.

If you currently receive a service from us, please contact your allocated worker at the social care local office.

Do you have to pay?

A charge is made for most care services. Usually the amount you pay will depend on how much capital and savings you have, although this varies from service to service.

Our staff will be as sensitive as possible when discussing your financial situation and any charges that apply will be in line with fairer charging.

Details about charges are given in separate factsheets about each service and these can be found by following this link Request Factsheets - Adult and Community Services (Social Care).

Your care plan

The care plan will set out the services which we agree will meet your needs.

The assessment and care plan will be reviewed regularly to take into account your changing needs.

• Fair access to care services

  Introducing clear, published criteria to describe eligibility for care services is intended to lead to fair and consistent decisions about who will get help from the local authority. At the heart of the Government's guidance is the principle that there should just be one decision about this: that is, should people be helped or not?

• Standards and complaints

  Dorset County Council Adult and Community Services are committed to providing quality services to service users and their carers.