Adult social care - how long to wait?

[Ihavethesecret]

Don't know if we're expecting too much but we're still waiting on adult social care doing an assessment for a direct payment from September for my MIL. There's now been a socail worker allocated but despite leaving messages, no-one calls back. Is this usual?

No idea sorry. Hopefully someone will be along soon.

You will unfortunately have to pester them relentlessly. With limited resources and budget, in my experience they deploy a delay tactic to stretch it as far as possible abs assume that if you aren't pestering them then they can delay.

Tbh if they’ve allocated a worker that person should be getting in touch with you! Or at least that’s how it works here. Waiting lists can be lengthy, though. Waiting since Sep is not unusual, but that doesn’t mean you should accept it meekly either!

5 times called and 5 will call you back. So frustrating.

@cloudofpink

You will unfortunately have to pester them relentlessly. With limited resources and budget, in my experience they deploy a delay tactic to stretch it as far as possible abs assume that if you aren't pestering them then they can delay.

I'm an adult social care social worker and I'm afraid to say this is sort of accurate.

It's not true it's a delaying tactic but my caseload is huge, a third bigger than it was even a few years ago and the budget we have available to us feels like it's been halved and the complexity of the paperwork we have to do is just boggling.

Basically if you have been allocated to my caseload there's every chance you are behind 10 other people I was allocated before you and also haven't got to.

The key is to keep ringing if you need the support urgently I'm afraid. If it's not urgent then they will still get to you eventually.

Just to be clear as well, they won't 'do an assessment for a direct payment' they will complete a Care Act Assessment, determine her care needs and what budget they feel could meet them and you can then choose to take that budget as a direct payment if it exceeds more than her assessed charge following a financial assessment.

Where I work, once you are allocated to someone you should get contacted quite quickly, i.e a week or two. Although it is possible the person has been on leave etc and that could take longer, and obviously Christmas is coming up. I'd keep calling.

There could be a number of reasons for the delay. The allocated SW may be off sick or on annual leave. They may have dire safeguarding cases which take priority or if the case has just been allocated, it may just have to wait. It's not necessarily the SW's fault for the delay as it may have only just been triaged and allocated by a manager. Often as well, social workers will be assigned Duty tasks over the xmas period meaning they have less time to spend on their own cases.

I don't agree that the persistent chasing necessarily speeds things up. It depends on what the delay is due to. Other cases which are more urgent will take priority. I'm an adults social worker and it has become an even tougher job due to Covid19 and dwindling resources and support.

I don't agree that the persistent chasing necessarily speeds things up

Yes I think this is what I was meaning too, if the situation changes and becomes more urgent ring back. But ultimately she will have been triaged and placed in a queue and that won't change if her situation hasn't changed.

One of the hardest bits of my job currently is feeling like a crap social worker because I simply don't have enough hours in the day to return everyone's calls.

Out of interest is she already receiving care but you want to change it to direct payments or would it be for a brand new Care Act assessment after which you are hoping to get direct payments? If it's the first then she will be way way way down the priority list.

Honestly, it depends on the local authority. I'm a SW and in my area we tend to be in touch within a day or two of the referral - that is at the moment - due to the way we work.

However as PP has said sometimes we are bogged down with urgent safeguarding cases, cases where the situation has become urgent etc. This week not a day has passed that I haven't had something go wrong with one of my cases and thus spent the whole day sorting out respite or emergency care.

Is your case one where there is no care in place at the moment and you are looking to get this purchased with a direct payment or is the care already in place but you are looking for the local authority to pick up the funding as the lower financial threshold has been reached?

If it is the latter then we would usually pick up the funding - backdated - to when you first enquired.

If care is already in place and you are just wanting us to pick up the funding then I'm afraid that is not urgent to us as the service user is safe and receiving care, and this would be lower priority.