‘A need is only a need if there is the resource to meet it’

Despite the focus on person-centred practice, people still get assessed for elibility to services based on available resources rather than their ‘lived experience’ of need. This, say Colin Slasberg and Professor Peter Beresford, reduces social workers to ‘street level bureaucrats’ and encourages ‘gaming’ of the system to maximise what people get. Ahead of a green paper on adult social care, they argue reconfiguring services to meet ‘absolute need’ rather than ‘eligible need’ is the right thing to do and makes financial sense too