Welcome To Wirral

What is a carer’s assessment?

Assessments identify what help you need. If you are regularly providing a substantial amount of care and your role is essential to supporting someone to live at home, you have a right to a separate assessment of your own needs. This is called a carer’s assessment. You are entitled to a carers assessment when:

• the person you care for is having a community care assessment;
• you are providing or intend to provide a substantial amount of care on a regular basis.

When we assess a carer you can expect us to look into the following:

• The range of tasks you take on and the effect this has on you.
• Your views and feelings about the care you provide.
• Any support you have from family, friends and neighbours.
• Tasks you would like help with.
• Any particular stress factors or parts of caring you find particularly difficult.
• Your emotional, mental and physical health.
• Other responsibilities you have such as work, education and family commitments.
• How willing and able you are to continue to provide care.
• How well you understand the illness or disability of the person you care for and how it is likely to develop.

The results of your assessment and that of the person you are caring for will be taken into account when making a decision about the kind of help needed. This is usually help to support you and to help the person you are caring for to carry on living in the place of their choice.

What type of help is available?

When we offer services to the person you are caring for, it is often possible to provide services to relieve and support you at the same time. These services may include:

• Information about community care and assessing people’s needs for services.
• Help in the home with dressing or providing personal care to the person you care for.
• A night-sitting service so the carer can get a good nights sleep.
• A sitting service to allow you to go out, either in the day or in the evening.
• Access to day activities at one of our day centres for the person you care for.
• Short-term breaks at residential and nursing homes for the person you care for.

We have to set priorities on how and who we can help first, but please don’t let this get in the way of contacting us. Even if you are not eligible for services we can provide you with helpful information. We are committed to helping carers to continue to look after the person they care for. We recognise that carers have important experience and information to share with our staff.

Charges for services

There is no charge for an assessment by a care manager and most NHS services are free. However, any service that we may offer will have a charge. We will discuss this with you and let you know how much you need to pay.

For further information see: Charging for services