Care Act Training Needs | SCIE and DHSC survey

SCIE has been commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care to develop ‘training resources to improve Care Act compliance’.

They have launched a survey to find out what is most needed: SCIE and DHSC survey (dotdigital-pages.com)

We encourage members using the Care Act to respond to this survey which closes 5pm Monday 21 August 2023. 

Part of this survey asks for suggestions about what topics social workers would like to see addressed in addition to those that they have listed.

BASW England strongly encourages social workers to complete this survey and to take into account the BASW policy document An Ethical Approach to Meeting Needs in Adult Social Care and an article in the July/August edition of PSW entitled: Doing the right thing in adult social care by Pete Feldon.

What follows are brief suggestions based on the work of the BASW England adult thematic group about content that social workers may wish to consider using in responding to the survey.

• We think there is a lot to be learned about compliance from accounts of where things have gone wrong, so it would be useful if there were learning materials that incorporate Ombudsman decisions and judicial reviews.
• We also think that learning materials should be developed to enable social workers to develop their knowledge and skills in making decisions about significant impact on wellbeing when applying eligibility criteria and the sufficiency of the personal budget when determining a care and support plan, and in particular exploring the tension between the local authority's duty to keep within its budget and professional assessment of how needs can be best met.
• An Ethical Approach to Meeting Needs in Adult Social Care, contends that the Care Act “is sometimes applied in ways… (whereby) the way the controlling of expenditure is being achieved gives rise to ethical concerns because of unjust policies and practices and constraints on social workers professional judgements”. It goes on to recommend “social workers should be expected as a matter of ethical practice to clearly state their professional judgements when contributing to the local authority decision about how individual needs will be met, and to identify where there is under-met need and potential unmet need”. This approach is reinforced by the NICE recommendation in NG216 that social workers should ensure that care plans “record any eligible needs which are unlikely to be met or only partially met, the reasons they cannot be met or only partially met and any potential actions that would allow them to be met in future”.

BASW England Adult Thematic Group (16.8.2023)