Jargon Buster

Prejudice or discrimination aimed at disabled people. Ableism sees disabled people as lesser or not ‘normal’, suggesting disability people need fixing, treating or curing.

Examples of ableism include asking what is ‘wrong’ with a disabled person, saying that a person ‘doesn’t look disabled’ or suggesting disabled people are inspirational or brave for doing everyday things like going to work. At a wider scale, ableism can include inaccessible buildings or a lack of reasonable adjustments in education or in the workplace.

Harm that is caused by anyone who has power over another person, which may include family members, friends, unpaid carers and health or social care workers. It can take various forms, including physical harm or neglect, and verbal, emotional or sexual abuse. Adults at risk can also be the victim of financial abuse from people they trust. Abuse may be carried out by individuals or by the organisation that employs them.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

Related Jargon

• Neglect

A group of health professionals who work with NHS England to speed up new treatments becoming available to patients on the NHS. They identify specific health conditions and types of treatment as priorities, and make sure that these treatments are developed and agreed for use as quickly as possible.

Categories

• Health and health care

Related Jargon

• Accelerated access pathway

A fast-track route for new medicines and treatments to reach patients on the NHS. Medicines with the greatest potential to be effective could be available on the NHS up to four years earlier than under the usual process.

Categories

• Health and health care

Related Jargon

• Accelerated access collaborative

The opportunity to use, get or benefit from something. Disabled people may need changes to be made so they have full access to things including information, transport, employment opportunities and buildings.

A scheme run by the government that provides practical advice and financial support to help people with mental health challenges and disabled people to find or stay in work.

It can pay for things like someone to help people communicate at a job interview, special equipment to help people do the job, or additional travel costs.

When a person or organisation is responsible for ensuring that things happen, and is expected to explain what happened and why.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation

Any cognitive impairment that develops after birth, including traumatic brain injury, stroke, and neurodegenerative conditions such as dementia.

Categories

• Disability

An impairment that a person is not born with but is caused, or develops during their life, by an injury or illness.

Categories

• Disability

Related Jargon

• Congenital disorder
• Impairment

A way of listening that means people are fully heard and understood. Someone who is actively listening to a person will not be making assumptions or jumping to conclusions. They will be giving the person their full attention and will be genuinely interested in what the person is communicating. They won’t be interrupting or doing other things. They will usually check with the person that they understand what is being communicated.

Categories

• Communication

Participation means taking part in something, like people taking part in decisions that affect them, and being part of community life.

Active participation is a way of working that supports people’s right to participate in every day life with as much choice and control as possible. People are seen as equal citizens and active partners in their care and support rather than being a passive recipient of care.

Related Jargon

• Participation

Support based on what people can and want to do, that means they can take part in every day life and do the things that matter to them.

Health care that people receive in hospital following an injury, operation or illness. It is different to any treatment people may receive for an ongoing health condition from their GP, community nurse or other health care workers in their local community.

Categories

• Health and health care

If a person is considering a ‘deferred payment’ agreement with their local council to fund their own care, the council will need to make sure that the person can afford to repay them when the time comes. This is called making sure there is ‘adequate security’ for the agreement.

This security may be the value of the person’s house, or a valuable possession (for example, a piece of art or jewellery), or someone who can guarantee that payment will be made.

Councils must publish a policy saying what types of security they will accept.

Categories

• Money

Related Jargon

• Deferred payments

A form of neurodivergence that affects people’s behaviour.

ADHD stands for Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Categories

• Neurodiversity

Related Jargon

• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• Neurodivergence
• Neurodiversity

More commonly known as ‘shared lives’.

Categories

• Housing with care and support

Related Jargon

• Placement
• Shared Lives

Changes proposed by the government in 2021 to the way local councils should charge people for adult social care. These changes were due to be made in October 2023 but were postponed until October 2025 in the government’s Autumn Statement in November 2023.

Categories

• Money

A tool that the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England use to measure how well care and support services do the things that matter most to people. The framework focuses on six main areas: people’s quality of life, independence, empowerment, safety, social connections, and continuity and quality of care.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation

A national survey that takes place every year and asks a selection of people who access adult social care about their quality of life, and the impact of care and support on their quality of life.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation

A plan that a person makes to say how they would like to be supported in the future. Advance care plans can cover areas including what the person thinks about different types of care, support or treatment, money, and likes and dislikes. They aim to make sure that people are supported in line with their wishes, if they lack the capacity to make decisions when they need to be made.

Categories

• Care and support planning
• Decision-making

Related Jargon

• Advance statement

When a person thinks ahead about wishes and preferences for future treatment and care, and makes sure that other people know what they want. It is an opportunity to think about what is important, and to let other people know about things a person would – or would not – like to happen if they can’t make a decision for themselves.

Categories

• Care and support planning
• Decision-making

Related Jargon

• Advance statement

A decision a person makes about what medical treatment they would or would not want in the future, if they lack capacity to make the decision when it needs to be made. Unlike an advance statement, it is legally binding in England and Wales.

Categories

• Decision-making
• Health and health care

Related Jargon

• Advance statement

A written document that lets people know what a person’s wishes, feelings and preferences are about their future care and support, in case they become unable to communicate them. It may also be included in a person’s support plan.

It can cover any aspect of their care and support, such as where they want to live and how they like to do things. A person can write it themself, with support from their family, friends, doctor and anyone else they wish. It isn’t a legal document, but it may help a person get the care and support they want. It is different to an ‘advance decision’ about medical treatment, which is a decision a person can make now about whether they want a particular type of treatment in the future.

Categories

• Care and support planning
• Decision-making

Related Jargon

• Support plan

Unexpected harm caused to a person by taking a particular medicine, either from a single dose or from ongoing use.

Categories

• Health and health care

When something happens that isn’t planned and causes harm, or puts people or organisations at risk of harm.

Categories

• Communication
• Decision-making

Related Jargon

• Duty of candour
• Risk management

Support for a person to understand and remember information, make decisions, and communicate their wishes and feelings.

If people wish to speak up for themselves to make sure their needs and wishes are heard and understood, this is known as self-advocacy

Categories

• Communication
• Decision-making

Related Jargon

• Appropriate individual
• Independent advocacy

An advocate is a person who supports someone to understand and remember information, make decisions and communicate their wishes and feelings. They will also speak up for a person if the person needs them to.

Advocates can be family members, friends or neighbours, or people working with and for people, like social workers. Advocates can help people to find support, make sure correct procedures are followed and challenge decisions made by local councils or other organisations.

Councils have a duty to involve independent advocates to support people who would otherwise find it very difficult to be fully involved in conversations and decisions, and where there is no one else appropriate to advocate for the person.

Categories

• Decision-making

Related Jargon

• Independent advocate

A type of mental health challenge that affects a person’s mood or feelings. The main examples are depression, bipolar disorder or anxiety, which may be mild or severe.

Categories

• Hospital
• Mental health

Mental health support provided to people after they leave hospital.

Under Section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983, the NHS and local councils have a duty to provide mental health after-care support for people who have been detained in hospital under certain sections of the 1983 Act.

The support must meet the needs arising from their mental health challenges and reduce the risk of the person requiring further hospital treatment for their mental health.

Categories

• Hospital
• Mental health

When a person or group of people are treated differently because of their age, and not offered the same opportunities as other people.

Categories

• Discrimination

Related Jargon

• Discrimination

An independent organisation that offers care and support to people. Local councils may arrange for people to access care and support from an agency, or people may arrange this support themselves.

Agency can also mean having influence or control over actions.

Related Jargon

• Home care
• Independent sector

Help to make things easier for people to live safely and comfortably in their home. This includes equipment and also changes to people’s home to make it easier and safer to get around. Aids and adaptations include things like grab rails, ramps, walk-in showers and stair-lifts.

Categories

• Equipment, adaptations and technology

A sign of suspected abuse or neglect that is reported to the local council or identified by the local council.

More commonly referred to as a ‘safeguarding concern’.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

Related Jargon

• Abuse
• Adult at risk
• Neglect
• Safeguarding
• Vulnerable adult

When there is a single agreement (a contract) between a commissioner and a group of organisations who provide different services. The organisations work together, rather than competing with each other, and aim for the same outcomes.

Categories

• Commissioning

Related Jargon

• Commissioner
• Integrated care

People who provide different types of health care who are not doctors, nurses or pharmacists. The description includes a wide range of roles, including physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dietitians, and podiatrists.

Categories

• Health and health care
• Workforce

A way of referring to a person that a social worker is supporting.

A social worker might talk about “my allocated cases”, and a team manager or team leader might talk about allocating cases to workers in their team.

Categories

• People

Alternative and augmentative communication systems are a variety of methods (for example, signing, use of visual symbols and eye gaze technology) that can be used to help disabled people to communicate. These systems or methods of communication can be used as an alternative to speech or to supplement it.

Categories

• Communication
• Disability

Health care such as tests or treatment that people receive in hospital as an outpatient, without having to stay in overnight.

Categories

• Health and health care

An NHS initiative for everyone over the age of 14, who is on their doctor’s learning disability register, to have a health check once a year.

Categories

• Disability
• Health and health care

A way of working that considers the impact of power, inequality and prejudice on people and seeks to lessen the exclusion of individuals and groups of people.

Anti-oppressive practice may include: recognising the barriers that people might face, such as personal, cultural or structural barriers; recognising a person’s place in a structure or culture and how this might affect other people; working to understand people’s experience of oppression; recognising people’s attributes and contribution; supporting people to realise their rights.

Categories

• Ways of working

A scheme in some areas where people may be able to choose who provides a health service they need, and the NHS will pay for it. People make their choice from a list of organisations, including charities and private organisations, that the NHS has decided provide a good quality service. Different types of services are included – for example, hearing tests or pain management services.

Categories

• Health and health care

When it seems that a person requires some care or support to live their life.

The law (Care Act 2014) says that local councils must complete an assessment for any adult with an appearance of need for care and support, even if the council thinks the person might not have eligible needs, and regardless of their financial situation.

Categories

• Assessment
• Needs

Related Jargon

• Assessment

A service that local councils may offer to manage a person’s money for them, if they are unable to do this and have no family or friends who can help them. The council can receive benefit payments on a person’s behalf, and arrange the payment of their living costs. People may have to pay their council a fee to provide this service.

Categories

• Money

A way of understanding what is working well, thinking about what could be better, designing ‘what might be’ and then taking action to make improvements. It is about building on what is good, and what is already working, rather than focusing on problems.

Categories

• Ways of working

A person who is aged 18 or over and who supports a child, or an adult who is perceived to be vulnerable, who is suspected of a criminal offence. An appropriate adult can be a family member, social worker or another responsible adult who does not work for the police. They are there to make sure that people are treated fairly, with respect for their rights and entitlements, and are able to take part in conversations and decisions.

Categories

• People

Someone who can help a person to be involved in conversations and decisions.

The individual will not be appropriate if
– they are already paid to support the person (for example, the person’s doctor or social worker)
– the person does not wish to be supported by them
– they are not in a position to support and represent the person, for example because they live too far away, or they also find it difficult to understand, retain or use information.

Under the Care Act 2014, councils have a duty to involve independent advocates to support people who would otherwise find it very difficult to be fully involved in conversations and decisions, and where there is no one else appropriate to advocate for the person.

May also be referred to as a ‘suitable person’.

Categories

• Decision-making
• People

Related Jargon

• Independent advocacy

Someone with specialist training who can be called on to arrange for a person to have their mental health assessed, to decide whether they should be admitted to hospital for their own safety or the safety of others. The approved professional’s main job may be social worker, occupational therapist, community mental health nurse or psychologist.

Approved Mental Health Professionals are often referred to as AMHPs.

Categories

• Mental health
• Workforce

An organisation that is not part of the government but carries out a task that the government has given it. It is funded by the government, and may be a large or small organisation.

A term that used to be used for some autistic people who did not also have a diagnosis of a learning disability.

It is now agreed that what was referred to as Asperger syndrome is part of the autism spectrum. Asperger syndrome should no longer be given as a diagnosis and there is no need for a separate term. However some people might still wish to describe themselves using the term.

Related Jargon

• Autism

A specialist service that may be offered in the place where people live if they have severe mental health challenges that affect their ability to manage their daily life. The team is made up of highly experienced staff, who can help people cope with all aspects of daily living, such as shopping, cooking, cleaning, taking medicine, finding education or employment, or finding somewhere to live. People are usually referred to an Assertive Outreach Team by their community mental health team rather than their GP.

Categories

• Mental health

Assessment and Treatment Units are specialist inpatient units designed to assess and treat autistic people, learning disabled people and people with mental health challenges. ATUs may be run by the NHS or by private providers.

People should only spend a short amount of time in ATUs, but lots of people stay in them for a long time, often too far away from the place they call home.

Categories

• Hospital

A way of helping people by looking at what is present and what people and communities have, rather than what is missing.

This approach helps people make use of their existing skills, knowledge and relationships. It is also called a ‘strengths-based approach’, and can be used as a way of improving local areas, by promoting what is good about an area rather than focusing on problems.

Categories

• Ways of working

Making use of what a community already has (such as existing organisations and resources), and using these things to make the area better for the people who live there. The aim is to look at what communities have, rather than what they lack. It has been described as ‘using what’s strong to deal with what’s wrong’.

Categories

• Ways of working

Related Jargon

• Asset-based approach

Working with people and communities to look at the positive things they have, and at what they are able to do rather than what they lack. These positive things – assets – include people’s knowledge and skills, local community organisations and the connections that exist between people.

Categories

• Ways of working

Related Jargon

• Asset-based approach

People, and things people have that may be valuable in money terms (such as a house), or useful in other ways (such as particular skills, knowledge or relationships).

Related Jargon

• Asset-based approach

Help that people may be offered if they are well enough to go home from hospital but if they don’t have much support at home – for example, if they live on their own. This service may be provided by a home care service or by volunteers, who can help people get home from hospital and get settled in their home, preparing food and doing any necessary shopping for them.

Categories

• Hospital

Related Jargon

• Discharge

Housing for older or disabled people, usually privately owned, where people have their own apartment within a larger development, and support (such as help with meals or laundry) is provided to meet their own particular needs.

Categories

• Housing with care and support

Related Jargon

• Extra-care housing
• Supported accommodation / Supported housing

Products that are designed to help older people and disabled people do everyday things easily and safely, and to have more control over their lives.

Assistive living technology includes things like wheelchairs, stairlifts, hearing aids and walking frames.

Categories

• Equipment, adaptations and technology

Devices, equipment or technology to help older people and disabled people to communicate, move around more easily, and have more control over their lives.

Categories

• Equipment, adaptations and technology

Equipment that helps people do everyday things more easily and safely in their own home. Examples include electronic medicine dispensers, memory prompts, ‘big button’ telephones or remote controls, and pendant alarms for wearing around necks or wrists. It also includes equipment that can detect potential hazards in people’s home, such as a fire or flood, or that can alert a family member, friend, neighbour or the emergency services if the person falls over or has a seizure.

Categories

• Equipment, adaptations and technology

A form of neurodivergence that affects people’s behaviour, usually referred to as ADHD.

Categories

• Neurodiversity

Related Jargon

• Neurodivergence

A check to understand what is happening. Audits let people and organisations know what is being done well and where there could be improvements.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation

A person who is allowed to request a direct payment from a local council on behalf of someone who requires care and support and has been assessed as lacking capacity to request the direct payment themselves.

The local council must be satisfied that the authorised person will act in the adult’s best interests, that they are capable of managing the direct payment, and that this is an appropriate way to meet the adult’s needs.

Categories

• Decision-making
• People
• Self-directed support and personal budgets

Related Jargon

• Best interests
• Capacity
• Direct payments
• Nominated person

A lifelong condition that affects how people communicate and interact with the world.

Being autistic does not mean people have an illness or disease. It means their brain works in a different way from other people. There is no treatment or cure for autism, but some autistic people may need support to help them with certain things.

Categories

• Neurodiversity

Related Jargon

• Autism spectrum disorder
• Neurodivergence

A national plan covering all of England that explains what the government is doing to make sure that autistic adults get the help they need with things such as living independently and finding employment. The autism strategy tells local councils and health services what they should do to help support autistic adults.

Many councils have their own autism strategy setting out what they will do to improve the lives of autistic adults in their area.

Categories

• Neurodiversity

When a person has control and choice over their life and the freedom to decide what to do and what will happen to them.

Categories

• Decision-making

Related Jargon

• Dignity
• Independence
• Self-determination

An unplanned hospital stay that could have been prevented with care, support or treatment.

Categories

• Hospital

On-call or emergency support that is available in extra-care or supported housing, in case it is required by people living there. It is separate to the planned care and support people receive. The cost of providing background support may be added as an additional charge to people’s extra-care or supported housing costs, if they pay for this.

Categories

• Housing with care and support

Related Jargon

• Extra-care housing
• Supported accommodation / Supported housing

An official list of people who, due to things they have done in the past, are unsuitable to work or volunteer with children or with adults who may be at risk of harm or abuse.

A Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check shows whether or not a person is on the barred list.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

Related Jargon

• Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)

A service that highlights how something can be done differently and better, and shares what it has learned with other organisations.

Categories

• Standards and best practice

Related Jargon

• Best practice

Care and support provided in a different place to a person’s home, such as a community hospital, residential care home or nursing home, either to prevent a person being admitted to hospital, or to support them when they leave hospital.

Categories

• Care and support services
• Housing with care and support

Related Jargon

• Intermediate care

A device that monitors if a person is in their bed, or if they have left their bed and not returned.

Categories

• Equipment, adaptations and technology

A written document to help support adults and children before, during and after incidents of distressed behaviour, and to keep everyone safe.

The plan should explain how to help the person communicate, and how to help them get the support they need. It should also describe the kind of situations the person finds difficult and explain what can be done to make things easier for them.

Categories

• Care and support planning
• Communication

Related Jargon

• Challenging behaviour
• Positive behaviour support

A person who has training in helping people and their family members and carers to understand and change their behaviour if it is causing problems for them.

Categories

• Communication
• Workforce

A type of therapy that aims to help a person understand and change their behaviour, if it is causing problems for them.

A way of comparing the same type of service in different places. The level of quality that every service should provide is set as a ‘benchmark’, and each service is measured against it and compared.

‘Benchmarking’ in this way should help services to work out how they can do things better and where they are doing well.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation

If a person has been assessed as lacking capacity to make a specific decision at the time that it needs to be made, then any action taken or decision made for or on behalf of that person must be done in a way that will have the most benefit to them (their ‘best interests’).

This is principle 4 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Categories

• Decision-making

Related Jargon

• Capacity to consent
• Power of attorney
• Mental Capacity Act 2005

An assessment to decide whether a person is, or may be, deprived of their liberty in a care home and hospital, and if so, whether this is in the best interests of the person affected.

Categories

• Decision-making

Related Jargon

• Best interests
• Best interests assessor
• Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS)

A qualified person like a social worker who completes a Mental Capacity Assessment to decide whether an adult lacks the capacity to consent to care and treatment in a care home or a hospital. Then, if the person lacks capacity to content, the worker completes a Best Interests Assessment to decide whether they have been deprived of their liberty, and if so whether this is in the person’s best interests.

Categories

• Decision-making
• Workforce

Related Jargon

• Best interests
• Best interests assessment
• Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS)

A way of doing something that has been shown to be the most effective way of doing it.

Categories

• Standards and best practice

An online community – like a social network – for everyone who is involved in bringing health and social care organisations together in a local area. It is an opportunity to share queries, concerns and information about the Better Care Fund.

Related Jargon

• Better Care Fund

Money given to local areas by the government to help join up health, social care and housing around people. The fund aims to support people to stay well, safe and independent at home for longer, and to provide people with the right care, in the right place, at the right time.

The fund requires Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and local councils to agree a joint plan, owned by the local Health and Wellbeing Board.

An agreement between a commissioner (such as a council) and an organisation to provide a service to a number of people, for a fixed amount of time, for a fixed sum of money. The number of people who receive the service may not be fixed, and the exact type of care and support they receive may not be specified. This type of contract is not tailored to people’s individual needs.

Categories

• Commissioning

Related Jargon

• Commissioner
• Commissioning authority

When an organisation such as a local council pays a provider for a service for a group of people with particular care and support requirements. Because block purchases guarantee an amount of work for a provider, services usually cost the council less. However, people who require these services may not have much choice about who provides their care or what they receive.

Categories

• Commissioning

Related Jargon

• Commissioning authority
• Provider

A diagram of a body that information about physical injuries can be shown on.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

Related Jargon

• Abuse

Someone whose job it is to provide people with advice and information about care and support services available in their area and how much they cost, so that people can choose to purchase the care and support that best meets their needs.

Brokers can also help people think about different ways they can get support, for example by making arrangements with friends and family.

Brokerage can be provided by local councils, voluntary organisations or private companies.

Categories

• Workforce

Related Jargon

• Advocacy
• Care navigator (also known as a Broker)
• Signposting

A senior person who works in an NHS organisation or local council and is responsible for making sure that people’s personal information is kept confidential, and is not shared with anyone who does not need to see it.

The law says that all NHS organisations and councils that provide care and support must have a Caldicott guardian.

The name comes from Dame Fiona Caldicott, who chaired a government review of confidential information in the 1990s.

Categories

• Keeping information safe
• Workforce

Related Jargon

• Confidentiality

What a person is able to do, what their strengths are, and what they might be able to do if they had the right support or assistance.

The ability to do something.

Usually used in social care in relation to mental capacity. Having mental capacity means that a person is able to make their own choices and decisions.

Someone may lack mental capacity if they can’t:

– understand information about a particular decision
– remember that information long enough to make the decision
– use the information to make the specific decision, or
– communicate their decision.

Categories

• Decision-making

Related Jargon

• Capacity to consent
• Mental capacity

‘A person’s ability to agree that it is ok for something to happen or for them to do something.

If a person has capacity to consent, they understand what they are being asked to agree to, and they are able to let people know whether they agree.

Categories

• Decision-making

Related Jargon

• Capacity
• Informed consent
• Mental capacity

‘Money that a person has in cash, savings accounts, current accounts, Premium Bonds, investments, property and land.

A financial assessment will take into account how much a personal capital a person has and this will determine how much they will have to contribute towards the cost of their care and support.

Categories

• Money

Related Jargon

• Capital limits
• Financial assessment

‘A financial limit that sets out at what point a person is entitled to get funded support from their local council to meet their eligible care and support needs.

There is an upper and a lower capital limit.

The upper capital limit is £23,250. People with more capital than this can ask their local council to arrange care and support for them, but they will have to pay the full cost of their care and support until their capital falls below the upper limit.

The lower capital limit is £14,250. If a person has capital between the upper and lower limit, they will have to pay £1 per week towards their care and support costs for every £250 in capital between the two amounts.

If a person’s capital is below the lower capital limit, they will not be required to contribute to the cost of their care and support from their capital.

Categories

• Money

Related Jargon

• Financial assessment

Care (education) and treatment reviews (C(E)TRs) are for people who have been admitted to a mental health hospital or for people who are at risk of admission. Their purpose is to make sure that people are only admitted to hospital when absolutely necessary and for the minimum amount of time possible.

Care and treatment reviews (CTRs) are for adults and care (education) and treatment reviews (CETRs) are for children and young people.

Care (education) and treatment reviews (C(E)TRs) are part of NHS England’s commitment to transforming services for people of all ages with a learning disability and autistic people.

Categories

• Disability
• Hospital
• Mental health

A law passed in England in 2014 that sets out local councils’ duties and responsibilities around care and support for adults.

These duties including promoting people’s wellbeing, preventing needs for care and support, providing information and advice, making sure there’s a good choice of care and support options, assessing and meeting people’s care and support needs and carers’ support needs, and safeguarding adults at risk of abuse or neglect.

Categories

• Law and legislation

Temporary changes to the Care Act 2014 introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic to help local councils cope. The easements meant that if a council could not meet everyone’s needs, it could give priority to people with the most urgent care and support needs. This would affect assessments, care plans and reviews. Councils were only permitted to do this if it was essential in their area, and they still had a duty to uphold people’s human rights. The government published an ‘ethical framework’ for councils to help them plan their social care response to the COVID-19 pandemic in their local area.

Categories

• Law and legislation

Related Jargon

• Care Act 2014
• Ethical framework for adult social care

The mixture of practical, financial and emotional support for adults who need extra help to live a good life – including older people, disabled people, people living with long-term illness or mental health challenges, and carers.

A plan that includes details of a person’s eligible care and support needs and how their needs will be met. It should describe how the planned care and support will help the person to do the things that matter to them, and that they identified in their assessment as being important to their wellbeing. The plan will include a personal budget, which is the amount of money allocated to a person to meet their care and support needs.

The person should be fully involved in planning their care and support, and offered support from an independent advocate if they need it.

Their plan belongs to the person, but their local council will approve the plan to make sure that the care and support will meet the person’s eligible needs and help them live the life they choose to lead.

Categories

• Care and support planning
• Self-directed support and personal budgets

Related Jargon

• Eligible care and support needs
• Independent advocate

A limit to the amount a person has to pay towards the cost of their care.

A cap of £86,000 was due to be introduced in October 2023 but the reform was postponed until October 2025 in the government’s Autumn Statement in November 2023, and then scrapped by the government in July 2024.

Categories

• Money

A group of individuals or organisations that work in partnership to meet a specific need – such as providing care services in a particular area – with each organisation providing the thing they specialise in.

Categories

• Care and support services

A tool for people to work out the cost of care and support.

Categories

• Money

Related Jargon

• Resource Allocation System (RAS)

A home that people live in with other people, with staff providing care and support. The home provides people with their own room, meals and personal care. Some care homes – but not all – also employ registered nurses to provide nursing care. Care homes may be privately owned or may be run by a charity or a local council. They are regularly inspected by the Care Quality Commission.

Categories

• Housing with care and support

Related Jargon

• Care Quality Commission (CQC)
• Residential care

The full range of care and support services that are available in a particular area. This may be the local area covered by a single council, or it may be the whole country.

Categories

• Care and support services

Related Jargon

• Market facilitation
• Market Position Statement

Someone whose job it is to provide people with advice and information about care and support services available in their area and how much they cost, so that people can choose to purchase the care and support that best meets their needs.

Brokers can also help people think about different ways they can get support, for example by making arrangements with friends and family. Brokerage can be provided by local councils, voluntary organisations or private companies.

Categories

• Workforce

Related Jargon

• Broker (also known as Care Navigator)

A plan for the care of someone who has a particular health condition and will move between services. It sets out in a single document what is expected to happen when, and who is responsible. It is based on evidence about what works best to treat and manage a particular condition.

Categories

• Health and health care

A plan for a person’s care and support, that sets out the person’s care and support needs and the support they require, and how the support will be provided.

Categories

• Care and support planning

Related Jargon

• Support plan

An approach to care planning for people with mental health challenges. It helps mental health services to understand people’s needs and work out how best to support them. The person will have regular contact with a care coordinator, who may be a social worker, community psychiatric nurse or occupational therapist. The coordinator will work with the person to write a ‘care plan’, which sets out what support the person will draw on, and who will provide the support.

Categories

• Mental health
• Ways of working

An organisation set up by the government to make sure that all hospitals, care homes, dentists, GPs and home care agencies in England provide care that is safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

If a person is unhappy with their care and support, they can contact CQC to let them know. Although CQC cannot investigate complaints about an individual person’s treatment or care, it inspects services and will use any information it receives to help it decide what to look at during an inspection.

The Health and Care Act 2022 gave CQC new powers to assess care and support at a local council and integrated care system level.

This means CQC now also look at how well local councils are doing against their legal duties. They assess how councils work with people, provide support, make sure people are safe, and what the leadership is like.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation

Information about a person that is collected, kept and shared by organisations that assess their needs and provide care and support. Care records include basic personal details like name, address, date of birth, close relatives and carers, as well as information about the person’s health and social care needs, what is important to them, and what has been agreed about their care and support.

Organisations must make sure records are kept safely, and should ask people if they are happy for their information to be shared with other people and organisations who are involved in their care. People have the right to see their care records and should receive a copy of all assessments and plans.

Categories

• Keeping information safe

A weekly payment from the government to people who support a partner, family member, friend or neighbour who requires some extra help as they grow older, or due to a disability or health condition.

People can claim Carer’s Allowance is they support someone for at least 35 hours a week and the person gets certain benefits.

Categories

• Carers
• Money

An assessment completed by a local council, or by an organisation like a carers centre on behalf of the council, to understand the support an unpaid carer might require.

The assessment should seek to understand the carer’s needs for support, if the carer can – and wants to – continue in the caring role, and what the carer wants to achieve in their daily life.

The law (Care Act 2014) says that local councils must undertake an assessment for any carer if it appears that the carer may have require some support, whether currently or in the future.

Categories

• Assessment
• Carers

A meeting that is usually held when a person is believed to be experiencing, or at risk of, abuse or neglect.

The purpose is to discuss the person’s situation and their wishes and decide what should happen next. The meeting will be attended by people who know the person, like their doctor, community nurse or social worker. The person (or their representative) should also be invited to the meeting.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

A way of coordinating care and support around the needs and wishes of a person.

This aims to improve communication and continuity of care and support. It usually means the person has a named worker who has a lead role in coordinating the person’s care and support.

Categories

• Ways of working

A way of working where a single, named case manager (sometimes known as a ‘key worker’) takes a lead in coordinating all the care and support that a person requires.

Categories

• Ways of working

An organisation run by disabled people, to support disabled people in their local area to make choices about how and where they live their lives, with the assistance and support they need to live as independently as possible.

Someone who supports or speaks up for a particular thing, such as dementia, or for a specific group of people, such as children or older people. A champion may be someone who works in social care or someone who draws on care and support.

Categories

• People
• Workforce

The process of designing, delivering and reviewing big changes to the way a team, service or whole organisation works.

Categories

• Ways of working

A fully accessible public toilet for disabled people, with equipment to support them and plenty of space. It is different to a standard accessible toilet, as it includes an adult-sized changing bench and a hoist, as well as enough space in the changing area for the disabled person and up to two other people.

Services that have a cost and people have to pay for.

Chargeable care and support services include home care and day care. Where a person’s financial assessment shows they can afford to pay for some or all of their care and support, they will be required to pay towards the cost of the service.

The law says that the amount local councils charge must be reasonable, and that people must not be charged more than their financial assessment shows they can afford to pay.

There are also some services that local councils are not allowed to charge people for. These are called non-chargeable services.

Categories

• Care and support services
• Money

Related Jargon

• Financial assessment
• Non-chargeable services

The charity model of disability views disabled people as objects of pity who require sympathy, help and looking after. This model views people as ‘brave’, ‘inspirational’, ‘special’, ‘suffering’ and ‘victims’.

Other models include the medical model of disability, social model of disability, and human rights model of disability

Categories

• Disability

Related Jargon

• Human rights model of disability
• Medical model of disability
• Social model of disability

Specialist NHS services for children and young people up to the age of 18 who require some support with their mental health. A young person may be referred to their local CAMHS for depression, eating difficulties, anxiety, sleeping problems, violent and angry behaviour, and other things. They can be referred by a doctor or other health professional, or by school staff or a social worker.

Categories

• Care and support services
• Children and young people
• Mental health

An assessment of a young person’s needs for care and support.

Local councils must carry out a child’s needs assessment for any young person where there is a significant benefit to the young person, and if they are likely to have needs for care and support after turning 18.

Consideration of ‘significant benefit’ relates to the timing of the assessment, and not to the level of the young person’s needs.

Child’s needs assessments are also referred to as transitions assessments.

The assessment should support the young person and their family to plan for the future.

Categories

• Assessment
• Children and young people

Related Jargon

• Transition assessment
• Young carers assessment

If a person has eligible needs for care and support, planning their support will include conversations about the best place for the person to live. This might mean the person chooses to move house to live in a different type of home, like Shared Lives, supported living, extra care housing or a care home.

Local councils must make sure the person has a genuine choice of places to live within the type of home identified in their support plan. So, if the person’s needs are best met in a care home, there must be at least one care home available and affordable within the person’s personal budget. This also applies to Shared Lives, supported living and extra care housing.

A person may choose to live in a more expensive home if a third party (usually a family member or friend) – or in certain circumstances the person – is willing and able to pay the additional cost (known as a ‘top-up’). This extra cost must always be optional and never because there is no choice of available and affordable accommodation.

Categories

• Assessment
• Housing with care and support

Related Jargon

• Top-up fee

A persistent or long-lasting illness or health condition that a person lives with, that cannot be cured but can usually be managed with medicines, treatments, care and support.

Categories

• Health and health care

Related Jargon

• Long-term condition

A group of lung conditions that cause breathing difficulties, including emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

Categories

• Health and health care

Sometimes also called a ‘circle of friends’, this is a group of people who act as a community around a person who requires help and support. The person themselves remains in control. The group may include the person’s family, friends and other supportive people from the community they live in. They are not paid, and their role is to help the person do the things they want to do and plan for new events in their life.

A volunteer from a person’s local community who can work with them if they require some help with making their needs and wishes known and with making decisions. The advocate can help them get what they are entitled to, find out what their options are, make choices and take part in their community.

Categories

• Decision-making
• People

A charity that offers free, independent, confidential advice in people’s local areas, online or over the phone. Advisers can help with things like money, benefits, housing or employment problems, and can help people find legal advice, if necessary.

The amount of money a person pays towards the cost of their care and support.

Categories

• Money

Related Jargon

• Financial assessment
• Self-funding

A way of finding out if the health care provided by a particular organisation is good enough, and what needs to be done better. It involves looking at how things should be done, comparing what is actually being done by an organisation, making changes where necessary, and then looking again to check for improvements.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation
• Health and health care

Related Jargon

• Audit
• Quality standards

An old term for a group of GP practices in a particular area that worked together to plan and design health services in that area. CCGs were established as part of the Health and Social Care Act in 2012, and replaced primary care trusts on 1 April 2013. On 1 July 2022 Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) were legally established through the Health and Care Act 2022, and CCGs were closed down.

Categories

• Commissioning
• Health and health care

Describes the overall quality of health care that patients receive. Effectiveness is based on research and the best available evidence.

Categories

• Health and health care
• Standards and best practice

A way for health care organisations to continuously improve the quality and safety of care they provide, and to explain how they are doing this.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation
• Health and health care

Related Jargon

• Accountability

The effect of a particular type of treatment on individual people who receive it, and on groups of people with a particular condition.

Categories

• Health and health care

When a doctor or other health professional causes a person harm because of something they did, or something they should have done. Examples include failing to diagnose a condition, making a mistake during treatment, giving the wrong drug, not warning a person about the risks of treatment, or not getting their agreement to treatment.

Categories

• Health and health care

Specific changes in a person’s health or quality of life, as a result of the medical treatment or care they receive.

Categories

• Health and health care

A scientific study that looks at a specific type of treatment to work out whether it is safe, whether it works and whether it is better than other treatments.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation
• Health and health care

Joint working between commissioning authorities, such as NHS England and local groups of GPs, to make sure that particular health services are available.

Categories

• Commissioning

Related Jargon

• Commissioning
• Commissioning authority
• NHS England

When people who have lived experience of a service work with people who work in the services to design something together – for example designing how a new part of the service could work, or the content of some public information. Co-design is different to co-production, as although people have genuine influence they are not fully involved in the final ‘product’ of the work.

Categories

• Commissioning

Related Jargon

• Co-production

When a person and their local council both contribute to the cost of their care and support.

Categories

• Money

When services are based in the same place or cover the same geographical area. People may not be part of the same team, but being co-located can help with collaboration and encourage them to share information and provide a better service.

When a person is living with more than one health condition at the same time.

Categories

• Health and health care

Acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse used to harm, punish or frighten a person, and behaviour designed to make a person feel inferior and/or dependent by keeping them apart from friends, help and support.

It can include taking advantage of a person’s money and things they have, limiting their freedom, and controlling what they do.

It is a type of domestic abuse.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

A type of therapy that can help people by changing the way they think and act. It is often used to treat anxiety and depression and can help people think about how their thoughts, beliefs and attitudes may be affecting their feelings and behaviour.

People may see a therapist face-to-face or take a therapy course online.

Categories

• Mental health

A difference in a person’s brain that may make it difficult for them to remember things, solve problems, learn new things or make decisions. It may be mild or severe, and may be something they are born with or caused by an illness or injury.

Categories

• Disability

Where an adult’s assessment is combined with a carer’s assessment and/or an assessment relating to a child so that shared needs, circumstances, wishes and feelings are properly heard and understood.

Categories

• Assessment

The people or organisations that arrange the care and support that is available in an area to meet the needs of the population.

Categories

• Commissioning

Related Jargon

• Commissioning

Arranging care and support meet the needs of a person, group of people or wider population.

Categories

• Commissioning

An organisation that arranges the care and support available in an area to meet the needs of the population.

Categories

• Commissioning

A national plan to encourage health organisations to provide better care for people by holding back part of their budget unless they can show that care is improving for people and outcomes are better.

Categories

• Commissioning

What good commissioning should look like, in order to improve the care and support that people receive. The standards have been created to help everyone who is involved in commissioning understand what excellent services look like, so that they can put the right care and support in place. They cover things like focusing on outcomes for people, ensuring equality, and using evidence about what works best.

Categories

• Commissioning
• Standards and best practice

A tool for passing on essential information about someone who requires support to communicate, to help people who work with them understand who they are, what they need and how they communicate.

The person’s own views are recorded and information is presented in a way that is very clear and easy to read. It is a particularly important tool when people move to a new home or when new people become involved with their care and support.

Categories

• Communication

A document that explains how an individual person with a learning disability communicates, what support they need, and how the person providing support should communicate with them.

Categories

• Communication

Related Jargon

• Communication passport
• Learning disability

A service to help people feel safe in their home by connecting them with a call centre if they need help. An alarm is installed in the person’s home, and they will be given a button to press if they need assistance. The button may be on a pendant that the person can wear, so it is always on them. Call centre staff are on duty 24 hours a day and can call a member of their family or the emergency services.

The service is likely to be organised by the person’s local council, and they may have to pay towards its cost.

Categories

• Equipment, adaptations and technology

A well-established organisation within a local community that supports the neighbourhood and helps other community organisations to develop and provide services that the whole community needs. It may be a community housing association, for example, or another type of non-profit organisation.

The skills, experience, knowledge, power and potential of local people and local communities to help and support each other and contribute towards individual and community wellbeing.

Related Jargon

• Asset-based approach
• Social capital

Social care services that support people to live a good life.

Categories

• Care and support services

A way for a person’s family and friends to come together to support them. Members of the ‘circle’ meet with the person to talk about what help is needed and make an action plan. There may be an independent person at the meeting to guide the conversation and help make the plan.

Related Jargon

• Circle of support

Individuals who can help people find out what is available to support them their local area and connect people to local services and groups.

Community connectors are often employed by local councils.

Categories

• Workforce

A service that supplies equipment to people, on loan, to enable them to live safely in their own home and to keep doing the things that matter to them. The type of equipment offered includes walking aids, bathing aids, special beds and other things that may be useful to people after a hospital stay, or to enable them to remain at home rather than moving into a care home.

An Occupational Therapist will work with people to understand what equipment they would benefit from.

The service is likely to be a partnership arrangement between the local council and local NHS organisations.

Categories

• Care and support services
• Equipment, adaptations and technology

Health services that are provided outside hospitals, such as district nursing.

Categories

• Health and health care

A type of business that helps people or communities and uses the money it makes to do more for the community it supports, rather than giving profits to private shareholders. Many social enterprises are registered as community interest companies, which are different to charities because they remain a private company.

Related Jargon

• Social enterprise

A team of different people working in health and social care, including nurses, therapists, and social workers, who support people in their own home for short periods. A community intervention service may be offered after someone has been in hospital, or to help them avoid needing to go into hospital.

Categories

• Hospital

A specialist health service for people with a learning disability and the people who support them. The team is made up of different workers including therapists, nurses and psychologists. It provides physical and mental health advice and support to people and families.

Categories

• Disability
• Health and health care

A team of workers who support people with their mental health in their own home, rather than in hospital. The team may include psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, social workers and occupational therapists. Their role is to organise and coordinate the person’s treatment, care and support.

Categories

• Health and health care
• Mental health

A service that helps people find their way around local health and social care services, so that they can find the support they need. This service may be provided via a person’s doctor’s surgery, local council or by a local charity.

Categories

• Care and support services

Also known as a ‘community mental health nurse’, this is a specialist nurse who works in communities rather than in hospital, with people who require support with their mental health. They are a key part of local community mental health teams.

Categories

• Mental health
• Workforce

An approach that looks at the health and wellbeing of the whole community, focusing on a wide range of things that can affect people’s wellbeing, inncluding social, economic, environmental, cultural, and political conditions.

When a person is made to go into hospital, for their own safety or the safety of others. This follows an assessment of their mental health.

It is also known as ‘being sectioned’ or ‘sectioning’. This refers to sections 2 and 3 of the Mental Health Act 1983.

Categories

• Hospital
• Law and legislation
• Mental health

Related Jargon

• Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP)
• Mental Health Act 1983
• Sectioning

Keeping information about someone safe and private, and not sharing it without the person’s knowledge and agreement. Any personal information they provide should be protected carefully, and should only be shared with people or organisations who genuinely need to know it. Personal details should not be discussed without the person’s agreement.

Categories

• Keeping information safe

A condition that a person is born with rather than something they develop during their life.

Categories

• Disability
• Health and health care

When a person says it is ok for something to happen or agrees to do something.

Categories

• Decision-making

When a person says it is ok for their personal information to be shared by an organisation.

Categories

• Decision-making
• Keeping information safe

A sum of money set aside to fund any unexpected or unplanned spending.

Categories

• Care and support services
• Money
• Self-directed support and personal budgets

A plan that is agreed with a person and/or the people who support them. It says what should happen if there is an emergency or if the person’s usual care and support arrangements stop working suddenly – for example if their carer is unwell or has to go to hospital.

Categories

• Care and support planning
• Self-directed support and personal budgets

Ongoing care outside hospital for someone who is ill or disabled, arranged and funded by the NHS. This type of care can be provided anywhere, and can include the full cost of a place in a nursing home. It is provided when a person’s need for day to day support is mostly due to their need for health care, rather than social care.

The government provides guidance to the NHS on how people should be assessed for continuing health care, and who is entitled to receive it.

Categories

• Health and health care

When a person’s care and support remains consistent and isn’t interrupted.

Local councils have a duty to make sure a person’s care and support continues without disruption during and after they move to a different area, when they enter or leave prison, if a provider organisation fails, and when young people and carers move from children’s to adult care and support.

Continuity of care can also mean that the person sees the same worker (e.g. doctor or social worker) each time, or that the person’s care is well coordinated by different workers and teams who communicate well with the person and each other.

Acts designed to make a person subordinate or dependent. This could range from separating people from sources of support to exploiting them. It can also involve depriving them of their freedom.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

When different people, teams or organisations involved in supporting a person work well together and with the person. Sometimes a person might have a ‘named worker’ or ‘care coordinator’ to make sure that everyone works together and that care and support is joined up and works well for the person.

Categories

• Ways of working

Related Jargon

• Case management
• Integrated care

An organisation such as a local council that is responsible for children in care. The council takes on the responsibility of a child’s parent, and is expected to do many of the things a parent would, such as providing a stable place to live, ensuring a child has a good education and helping them prepare for adult life.

Categories

• Children and young people

A comparison of how much something costs in relation to how much benefit is gained from it.

Looking at cost-effectiveness can help with decisions about how money should be spent.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation
• Money

Related Jargon

• Value for money

A person who is trained to listen and help people think through particular problems or issues and how they feel about them.

Categories

• Workforce

A person appointed by the Court of Protection who is authorised to make decisions (relating to the person’s health, welfare, property or financial affairs) on behalf of someone who lacks mental capacity and who cannot make a specific decision for themselves at the time it needs to be made.

Categories

• Decision-making
• Law and legislation

An English court that makes decisions on financial or welfare matters for people who can’t make specific decisions at the time they need to be made because they lack mental capacity.

Categories

• Law and legislation

A way of helping people cope at a time of crisis when they are overwhelmed, and enabling them to remain in their home.

A plan for where and how people can get mental health support in a crisis. The aim of the plan is to keep the person safe, help them to recover from the crisis, and avoid having to stay in hospital.

Categories

• Mental health

The ability to understand and respond to a person’s cultural identity or heritage.

Cultural identity or heritage can cover a range of things. For example, it might be based on ethnicity, nationality, disability, or religion. Or it might be to do with the person’s sexuality or gender identity.

Attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and values that are shared by a group or groups of people.

The amount people pay for everyday things like food, rent and bills.

Social care charging rules mean people must people keep enough money to meet these costs.

Categories

• Money

The legal control over access to and use of data stored in computers.

In social care this is particularly important given the sensitive, confidential, and critical nature of information that is held about people.

Categories

• Keeping information safe

A place offering care and support to people during the day time. Day centres often provide meals and things to do, as well as a chance to meet new people. Day centres can be privately owned, or managed by local councils or the NHS.

Categories

• Care and support services

Opportunities for people requiring care and support to spend time with other people and have things to do during the day.

Categories

• Care and support services

The collection of money that is owed to an organisation by someone who hasn’t paid on time.

The law allows local councils to claim back money from people for care and support they have received, if they have had a financial assessment and can afford to contribute and have not paid. If they live in a care home or extra-care housing, their local council should offer them a deferred payment arrangement before starting debt recovery. Debt recovery should be a last resort, and councils should always consider people’s individual circumstances.

Categories

• Money

Related Jargon

• Financial assessment

Removing or replacing a service. In the case of a local service that provides care or support, the council as commissioner may stop using it or paying for it. This may mean the service will close.

Categories

• Commissioning

Related Jargon

• Commissioning

Deferred payments mean that people do not have to sell their home in their lifetime to pay for the cost of their care and support in a care home or in supported living.

The cost of care and support is deferred, and will need to be repaid by the person (or someone acting on their behalf) at a later date.

Categories

• Money

An approach to working with people who require care and support that looks mainly at what they are unable to do and what their problems are. It focuses on ‘what’s the matter with you’, and is the opposite of a strengths-based approach which starts with ‘what matters to you’, and builds on what is strong rather than what’s wrong.

Categories

• Ways of working

Related Jargon

• Strengths-based approach

An illness that gets worse over time.

Categories

• Health and health care

When a person is well enough to leave hospital after an illness or accident, but has to stay there, usually either while paperwork is completed or while the care and support they require at home or in another place is arranged.

Categories

• Hospital

When a person is well enough to leave hospital after an illness or accident, but has to stay there while the care and support they need at home or in another place is arranged.

Categories

• Hospital

A general term for loss of memory, language, problem-solving and other thinking abilities that are severe enough to interfere with people’s daily life.

There are different types of dementia, including Alzheimer’s, Vascular, Lewy body and Frontotemporal.

Categories

• Health and health care

Someone who knows a lot about dementia and supports people if they, or someone they are close to, has been diagnosed with dementia. The advisor will listen to their questions and concerns, and connect people to sources of further support.

Categories

• Workforce

A city, town or village where people are aware of dementia and understand it, and people living with dementia are respected, supported and included in their community. It is led by local people, who work to remove the barriers that stop people with dementia taking part in community life. The Alzheimer’s Society has a recognition scheme for dementia-friendly communities.

The government department leading the nation’s health and social care to help people live more independent, healthier lives for longer.

A person who relies on support from another person, like a child or a relative.

Categories

• People

When someone deliberately reduces the amount of income, savings or property they have (their assets), in order to qualify for help from their local council with paying for care costs or for various benefits.

The council may judge that people have tried to deliberately avoid paying for care and support costs by depriving themselves of assets.

Categories

• Money

Related Jargon

• Assets
• Financial assessment

People have a human right to liberty. If someone is continually watched and controlled, and is not free to permanently leave the place they are in, it is very likely that they are being deprived of their liberty.

The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards – often referred to as DOLS – are legal protection for people who are in a care home or hospital. The care home or hospital is known as the ‘managing authority’, and if they think a person needs to be deprived of their liberty, this will need to be authorised by the local council.

Categories

• Housing with care and support
• Law and legislation

Someone appointed by the Court of Protection to make decisions on behalf of a person if they lack capacity to make those decisions themself and have not already given someone power of attorney. A deputy can be appointed to make decisions about property and financial affairs, or about health and welfare, or both. Deputies may be family members or friends, or they may be a professional person like a solicitor.

Categories

• Decision-making
• Law and legislation

Related Jargon

• Best interests
• Court of Protection
• Power of attorney

The things that people want to achieve in their day-to-day life.

The main purpose of adult social care is to help people to achieve the outcomes that matter to them in their life.

Assessment conversations should focus on people’s desired outcomes, considering the person’s care and support needs, the impact of their needs on their wellbeing, and whether support to meet these needs will help the person to achieve the things that matter to them.

Categories

• Assessment
• Self-directed support and personal budgets

When a person is disabled or has a particular health condition, and doctors think this is the reason for any health problems or symptoms they have. It often affects people with a learning disability or people who require support with their mental health, and can mean that illnesses are missed or not treated properly.

Categories

• Disability
• Health and health care

The tests and assessments that are carried out by people working in health care to help them decide if someone has a specific condition or illness.

Categories

• Health and health care

A test to help people working in health care to identify a condition or disease. It may be a medical test, or may be a set of questions about what someone is experiencing.

Categories

• Health and health care

When a person is experiencing barriers preventing them from using technology. Barriers can include access, skills, confidence, fear or motivation.

Categories

• Equipment, adaptations and technology

Being worthy of respect as a human being, and treated as if you matter. People should be treated with dignity by everyone involved in their care and support. If people are not treated with dignity, they may feel uncomfortable, embarrassed and unable to make decisions for themself. Dignity applies equally to everyone.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

A national campaign to put dignity and respect at the centre of care services in the UK.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

An additional service provided by a doctor (GP), beyond what they would normally provide, to meet a particular need – such as working out who may be at risk of an unplanned hospital stay, and finding ways to avoid this happening. GP practices are paid extra for these services, and can choose whether to provide them.

Categories

• Health and health care

Money paid to people (or to someone acting on their behalf) by their local council on a one-off or regular basis, so people can arrange their own support to meet their eligible needs.

The person may choose a direct payment to meet all their needs, or just some of their needs, with their remaining needs met through support arranged by the council or by a third party (usually through an Individual Service Fund (ISF)).

Local councils should give people clear information about direct payments so they can decide whether to ask for a payment, and should support people to use and manage the payment appropriately.

People can request a direct payment during care and support planning, or before or during a review.

Local councils must not force people to take a direct payment if they don’t want to, or place people in a situation where a direct payment is the only way to draw on personalised care and support.

Categories

• Care and support planning
• Self-directed support and personal budgets

Related Jargon

• Personal budget

The Equality Act 2010 definition of disability says that a person is disabled if they have a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

The Act requires public bodies to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to make things like information, buildings and policies accessible to disabled people.

Categories

• Disability

Related Jargon

• Impairment
• Reasonable adjustments

Money that disabled people have to spend on things that non-disabled people don’t pay for, like extra laundry, high heating bills or special clothes.

The law says that local councils should look at these expenses when completing financial assessments, to work out how much people can afford to pay towards the cost of care and support.

Categories

• Disability
• Money

Related Jargon

• Financial assessment

Money people can get from their local council if they are disabled and need to make changes to their home. Changes include things like widening doors, adding ramps or installing a downstairs bathroom. The amount people get usually depends on their household income and savings. Disabled children and young people under 18 years old can get a grant without their parents’ income being looked at.

People can apply for Disabled Facilities Grants through their local council, if they live in England, Wales or Northern Ireland.

Categories

• Equipment, adaptations and technology

Related Jargon

• Aids and adaptations

The process of planning when a person will leave hospital, where they will go, and the care and support they are likely to require when they are no longer in hospital. Discharge planning should begin as soon as a person goes into hospital, or even before they are admitted.

Hospitals and community services should work together, and with the person, their family and carers, so everyone has a clear understanding of what will happen while the person is in hospital, and the date they are expected to be discharged.

Categories

• Hospital

A report or letter that is sent to a person’s doctor (GP) when they have stayed in hospital, so that their GP knows what has happened and what needs to happen next. The person should also be given a copy. The report should explain why the person was in hospital, what treatment they received, the results of any tests that were done, what changes may have been made to their medication, and any follow-up care that is needed.

Categories

• Hospital

When people who require some care and support leave hospital, and are assessed for longer-term support in the right place to best support their recovery, which is ideally in their own home. This means people don’t have to stay in hospital until long-term care and support is arranged.

Categories

• Hospital

Related Jargon

• Home First
• Step-down care

Telling someone about new or secret information.

For example, when an adult or child who has experienced or perpetrated domestic violence or abuse informs someone like a health or social care worker.

A government organisation that checks people’s criminal records, in order to prevent unsuitable people from working with children or adults who may be at risk of harm or abuse.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

Related Jargon

• Barred list

When there is no fixed rule about what should be done in a particular situation, and a person or organisation making a decision has freedom to use their own judgement. For example, local councils have discretion over whether to charge for some services.

When the value of a person’s main or only home is not included in a financial assessment to calculate how much the person can afford to pay towards the cost of their care and support, this is called a ‘property disregard’.

There are rules that say when local councils can apply the property disregard. If councils choose to apply the disregard in other circumstances, this is called a ‘discretionary disregard’.

Categories

• Money

Related Jargon

• Property disregard
• Twelve week disregard

Services that a local council may choose to offer that it doesn’t have to provide by law. These are also known as ‘non-statutory services’. (Services that the law says councils have to provide are called ‘statutory services’.) Examples of discretionary services include leisure centres, libraries and lunch clubs.

Related Jargon

• Statutory services

Treating a person, or a group of people, differently to other people because of their sex, age, race or other things. It usually means treating the person unfairly and not offering them the same opportunities as other people.

Categories

• Discrimination
• Equality, diversity and inclusion

A fixed amount (up to £144 per week) of a person’s income that local councils must allow a person to keep (if they want to) if they have a deferred payment agreement. The council can require people to contribute the rest of their income towards the cost of their care and support.

Categories

• Money

When something is too large or too small in relation to something else. Local councils may describe the cost of providing a particular service as ‘disproportionate’ in relation to the overall amount of money that is available.

Support provided to people to prevent their admission to hospital, like reablement and falls prevention services.

Categories

• Hospital

Recognising, respecting and valuing differences in characteristics of people, including race, gender, disability, sexual orientation and religion or belief, and making sure people are included and can participate.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Specific areas where people may require particular assistance, such as moving around, eating or breathing.

Decisions about eligibility for continuing healthcare are made by considering people’s needs in relation to 12 domains, including nutrition, continence, mobility and communication.

Related Jargon

• Care Quality Commission (CQC)
• Continuing health care (CHC)

An incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour, violence or abuse by someone who is or has been an intimate partner or family member, regardless of gender or sexuality. It can include: psychological, physical, sexual, financial, emotional abuse; ‘honour’ based violence; Female Genital Mutilation; forced marriage.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

An incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour, violence or abuse by someone who is or has been an intimate partner or family member, regardless of gender or sexuality. It can include: psychological, physical, sexual, financial, emotional abuse; ‘honour’ based violence; Female Genital Mutilation; forced marriage.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

Also known as home care, this is support that people draw on if they are living in their own home rather than in a residential care home.

Categories

• Care and support services

When a person requires assistance from two people to help them to move.

May also be referred to as ‘double-ups’.

Related Jargon

• Manual handling
• Moving with dignity
• Single handed care

Categories

• Mental health

Related Jargon

• Accelerated access pathway

Things the law says that organisations like local councils must do. If organisations don’t follow their legal duties, this may result in legal challenge.

Under the Care Act 2014, local councils have a legal duty to promote people’s wellbeing, prevent, reduce and delay care and support needs, provide information and advice, make sure a range of care and support options are available in their area, integrate care and support with other provision including health and housing, co-operate with partners, and ensure continuity of care.

Councils also have a duty to carry out an assessment where a person has an appearance of need, to meet a person’s eligible needs, to involve an independent advocate if a person would otherwise find it very difficult to be fully involved in conversations and decisions, and to review a person’s care and support plan and make any changes needed.

The Care Act 2014 also requires councils to make enquires, or ask others to make enquiries, when they think an adult with care and support needs may be at risk of abuse or neglect in their area and to find out what, if any, action may be needed, and to set up a safeguarding adults board in their area.

Categories

• Law and legislation

When something goes wrong with the health or social care that a person receives, the organisation that provides the care has a legal duty to be open with the person, to explain what has happened and to apologise to them.

Categories

• Law and legislation

Making sure people do not stay in hospital any longer than they need to by beginning to plan what will happen when they leave hospital as soon as they go in, or even before.

Hospitals and community services should work together, and with the person, their family and carers, so everyone has a clear understanding of what will happen while the person is in hospital, and the date they are expected to be discharged.

Categories

• Hospital

Actions that aim to slow down or reduce people’s needs for care and support, or prevent other needs from developing. Early intervention includes things like falls prevention clinics, adaptations to people’s houses to make them easier to get around, or support for carers.

An accessible format for written communication designed for people with a learning disability. It uses simple jargon-free language, short sentences and illustrations.

Categories

• Communication

A plan for children and young people aged up to 25 who need more support than is available through special educational needs support.

EHC plans identify educational, health and social needs and set out the additional support to meet those needs.

Categories

• Care and support planning
• Children and young people

When a person is allowed to get or do something because certain things apply to them.

Local councils determine whether people’s have eligible needs for care and support using the national eligibility threshold set out in the Care and Support (Eligibility Criteria) Regulations 2015.

Categories

• Assessment

Related Jargon

• National minimum eligibility threshold

The way local councils decide whether an adult has eligible needs for care and support.

Local councils must consider whether:
– the adult’s needs arise from or are related to a physical or mental impairment or illness
– as a result of the adult’s needs, they are unable to achieve 2 or more specified outcomes, and
– because they can’t achieve these outcomes there is, or there is likely to be, a big impact on their wellbeing

An adult’s needs are only eligible where they meet all 3 of these conditions.

Categories

• Assessment

Related Jargon

• Specified outcomes
• Wellbeing

The needs a person has for care and support that their local council is required by law to meet. Under the Care Act 2014, councils have to follow the national minimum eligibility threshold to determine people’s eligible needs.

An adult’s needs are ‘eligible needs’ if they meet the eligibility criteria, they are not being met by a carer, and the adult is ordinarily resident or present in the local council area.

Categories

• Assessment
• Needs

Related Jargon

• National minimum eligibility threshold

Where someone insults, humiliates, or threatens a person. Sometimes called psychological abuse, emotional abuse includes threats of harm, abandonment, deprivation of contact or support, blame, intimidation and isolation.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

A way of helping people to continue to live in the place they call home and to do the things that matter to them, by giving them the opportunity to relearn or regain some of the skills for daily living that may have been lost as a result of illness, accident or impairment.

Related Jargon

• Equity
• Intermediate care
• Reablement

Support for people who are in the last months or years of their life.

When someone (known as the ‘attorney’) is appointed by a person (the ‘donor’) to help make, or to make, decisions about their property or money when the person cannot make a decision at the time it needs to be made because they lack capacity. The attorney must make decisions about the donor that are in their best interests.

Enduring power of attorney (EPA) has been replaced by lasting power of attorney (LPA). EPAs made and signed before 1 October 2007 can still be used.

Categories

• Decision-making
• Law and legislation

Related Jargon

• Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA)
• Power of attorney

When something such as a rule or a law can be made to happen the way that it says it will, because there is something in place to check and insist on it.

Action that can be taken to make sure that organisations such as care providers do what the law says they should. A regulator such as the Care Quality Commission can issue warnings to services that are not up to standard, make them pay a fine, or ultimately close them down if they do not improve.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation

Related Jargon

• Care Quality Commission (CQC)

An NHS framework for care and support for people living in care homes. The framework guides the commissioning and delivery of support, with the aim of ensuring that different health and social care services work together to provide personalised care and support.

Categories

• Housing with care and support

Having a right to do or receive something.

Equality means treating people as equals. This means people are treated fairly and have equal chances and choices.

Equality does not mean treating everyone in the same way. Some people may need extra help or support to have the same chances and choices as everyone else.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Related Jargon

• Equity

A process of considering the impact that a new policy, project or change will have on all groups of people, and making sure that no-one is left out or worse off. The aim is to see whether changes to the way things are done will have a good or bad result for people from particular groups, such as disabled people, older people and people from different ethnic groups.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Related Jargon

• Discrimination
• Protected characteristics
• Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED)

Equity is about fairness. It recognises that everybody is different and will require different opportunities, support etc to live a good life and do the things that matter to them. Some people prefer the term ‘equity’ to ‘equality’ – as equality can be interpreted as treating everyone in the same way, whereas equity acknowledges that some people may need to be treated differently to ensure they have the same opportunities as other people.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Related Jargon

• Able-bodied
• Abuse
• Accelerated access pathway
• Adult Social Care Charging Reform

Ensuring that everyone has fair and equal opportunities to access social care support, regardless of factors such as socioeconomic status, geographic location, ethnicity, disability, or cultural background. Barries to access can include things like language or cultural differences, digital exclusion, and lack of awareness about entitlements and support available.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Ensuring that social care support results in comparable and fair improvements in people’s quality of life and well-being, regardless of their starting point or background. Challenges to equity of outcomes can include things like variations in the quality of care and support available, and social determinants of health.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

A financial plan offered by private lenders if people own their own home. It allows people to release some money from the value of their home to pay for care and support, or for other things. This is then paid back to the lender after the person’s death or when they move permanently into a care home. People should always get independent expert advice before taking out a plan like this.

Categories

• Money

Guidance for local councils issued during the COVID-19 pandemic to help councils to plan their care and support response to coronavirus in their local area.

Related Jargon

• Assessment

“Categories used to identify and record people’s ethnicity.

People may identify with a particular ethnic group due to their culture, family background, identity or physical appearance.

The main ethnic groups established by the Office for National Statistics and used in the 2021 Census are:
– Asian or Asian British
– Black, African, Caribbean or Black British
– Mixed or multiple ethnic groups
– White
– Other ethnic group

People should be able to identify their own ethnic group and assumptions should not be made about a person’s ethnicity.”

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

A person’s ethnicity is determined by multiple factors including their country of birth, nationality, language spoken at home, skin colour (an aspect for consideration for some and not for others), national/geographical origin and religion.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

A judgement about how well something works or how well it does what it is supposed to do, based on a set of clear statements about what it should be like.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation

Categories

• Assurance and regulation
• Standards and best practice

People living with a long-term health condition who are able to take more control over their health by understanding and managing their conditions, leading to an improved quality of life.

Categories

• Health and health care
• People

A six-week programme of weekly classes to help people to manage their own health, and to live as well as possible with a long-term health condition.

Categories

• Health and health care

A model of housing with care aimed at older people who require care and support but do not wish to move into residential care. It usually consists of self-contained flats or bungalows that people can rent or buy, where care and support is available for people to draw on if and when they need it.

Categories

• Housing with care and support

Before the Care Act 2014, fairer charging guidance told councils how much they should charge people for things like home care and day services. These fairer charging policies were replaced by the Care Act 2014, which provides a single legal framework for charging for care and support.

This framework is intended to make charging fairer and more clearly understood by everyone. It says that people should only be required to pay what they can afford towards the cost of their care and support.

Categories

• Money

A family group conference is a meeting where families make plans and decisions about a child or adult.

The meeting is organised and run by an independent co-ordinator.

‘Family’ includes the child or adult the meeting is about, and their family, friends and people from their community who care about the child or adult.

Categories

• Ways of working

A way of working where support is offered to the whole family rather than just one member of the family.

Categories

• Ways of working

If a person is near the end of their life or their condition is getting worse quickly, they can receive a faster than usual assessment for continuing health care. This can help NHS funding for their care and support to be put in place as quickly as possible, usually within 48 hours.

Categories

• Health and health care

Related Jargon

• Continuing health care (CHC)

When an individual or organisation that is allowed to use their judgement to make a decision – because there is no fixed rule about what they should do – expresses an opinion on one side or the other before the decision is made. There cannot be a blanket rule about something that applies to everyone. If someone has ‘fettered their discretion’, they have decided the outcome before considering all the facts.

Categories

• Decision-making

When someone harms a person by stealing from them. This could include theft , fraud, internet scamming, coercion in relation to an adult’s financial affairs or arrangements, for example in connection with wills, property, inheritance or financial transactions, and the misuse of property, possessions or benefits.

Categories

• Money

The way local councils work out how much a person can afford to pay towards the cost of their care and support.

The financial assessment usually happens after the assessment of the person’s care and support needs. If it happens at the same time, it must not influence the needs assessment.

Categories

• Assessment
• Money

The first time a person connects with their local council to request some support, and the council begins to collect information about them and/or the person they are making contact about. The contact could be over the telephone, by email, by textphone, via an online form or ChatBot, or face-to-face in a council office, hospital, community venue or other location.

This is when the local council begins to assess the person’s needs for care and support. The Care Act 2014 guidance says that from the person’s very first contact with the council, they must be given as much information as possible about the assessment process, in an accessible format. Councils should also consider the person’s need for independent advocacy from this stage.

Categories

• Assessment

Related Jargon

• Independent advocacy

A ‘top up’ is an extra amount of money that must be paid if a person chooses to live in care home that costs more than their personal budget.

A top-up is usually paid by the person’s family or a friend, or in certain circumstances by the person. When the top up is paid by the person this is called a first party top up.

People can only make their own top up payment if they are subject to the 12-week property disregard, they have a deferred payment agreement, or their home is provided under Section 117 for mental health aftercare.

Categories

• Housing with care and support
• Money

Related Jargon

• Deferred payments
• Section 117
• Third party top-up
• Twelve week disregard

A five-year plan for the future of the NHS that was published in 2014. It set out how the NHS needed to do things differently to improve people’s health and manage within the funds that were available. The aim was to find new ways of providing care and making better use of money.

Categories

• Health and health care

Care and support needs that change over time, or that vary from day to day. The Care Act 2014 says that local councils should ask a person, as part of their assessment, how their needs vary, and should work with them over a long enough period of time to get a complete picture of their needs. If a person has fluctuating needs, their care plan or support plan should say what they want to happen if they have a sudden change or an emergency.

Categories

• Needs

A marriage where one or both partners do not or cannot consent to the marriage but are forced into it using physical, psychological, financial, sexual or emotional pressure.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

Services for people who require some support with their mental health, who are currently, or have been, involved in the criminal justice system. Services may be provided in a secure hospital or in the community.

Categories

• Mental health

Someone who is held in a mental health ward in hospital and is not allowed to leave – by law – for their own safety or the safety of others. This is sometimes described as being ‘sectioned’.

Categories

• Mental health
• People

Related Jargon

• Informal patient
• Mental Health Act 1983
• Sectioning

A condition that may develop as people get older and their body becomes less able to recover from illness or injury. Refers to older people who are at higher risk of illness or injury – for example through falling over, and who are more likely to spend time in hospital or to require longer term care and support.

Older people with frailty usually have weak muscles and will walk slowly, get tired easily and find it hard to climb stairs or get out of a chair or bed.

Categories

• Health and health care

How well a person is able to manage everyday tasks such as getting dressed, preparing food and looking after their home. A person’s ability to do these things, and also to work, might change as a result of illness or disability.

A way of understanding a person’s ability to manage everyday tasks, and working out how much help and support someone might need.

Categories

• Assessment

A worker such as a nurse, social worker, occupational therapist or psychologist, who helps people who require support with their mental health. Gateway workers work closely with GPs and can give people information and advice about support services in their area that may be helpful for them. People may see a gateway worker at their doctor’s surgery or in their own home.

Categories

• Workforce

How someone chooses to express their gender identity.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

How a person feels about their gender.

Terms people might use to describe their gender identity include female, male, trans or transgender, non-binary, cisgender or gender fluid.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Rules about how people’s personal information – like their name, contact details and information about their health – can be gathered, stored and used.

The rules aim to keep people’s personal information safe.

Categories

• Keeping information safe

A term that is increasingly used in place of ‘ethnic minority’ and ‘black, Asian and minority ethnic’ or ‘BAME’ to refer to people with African, Asian, Indigenous or Latin ancestry, who comprise approximately 85 percent of the global population.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Under section 7 of the Mental Health Act 1983, people aged 16 and over with mental health challenges can be given a guardian to help them, if two doctors say this is needed to protect the person or other people.

A guardian could be the person’s local council, or someone else that the local council approves.

A guardian has legal powers to tell a person
– where they must live
– to attend appointments, work, training or education at agreed time and places
– to let a doctor or other named person see them.

Categories

• Mental health
• People

The process of handing over information, or redirecting people, from one health or care worker, team or organisation to another.

Related Jargon

• Referral
• Signposting

A local service that offers help with small, practical jobs in people’s home, to make their life easier and their home safer. It includes jobs like putting up curtain rails, replacing light bulbs or fitting smoke alarms. It is not an emergency service. It may be run by the council, a charity or a private company, and people are likely to have to pay something towards it.

A personal plan for young people and adults with a learning disability about how to stay healthy and what help and support they may need to look after their health.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect
• Health and health care

All local councils in England have a Health and Wellbeing Board. The Boards bring together people who work in the NHS, public health and social care to improve the health and wellbeing of their local population.

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 introduced Health and Wellbeing Boards from 1 April 2013 in all local councils with social care and public health responsibilities.

The Health and Care Act 2022 does not change the statutory duties of Health and Wellbeing Boards set out by the 2012 Act.

Categories

• Health and health care

Unfair and avoidable differences in health across the population, and between different groups within society.

Health inequalities can include differences in things like life expectancy, access to care and support, and experience of care.

Health inequalities are due to the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, which impact on their health and wellbeing.

These conditions are sometimes referred to as wider determinants of health.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion
• Health and health care

An organisation that aims to find out what matters to people in relation to their health and wellbeing, and make sure people’s views and experiences are shared with NHS leaders and other decision makers.

There are over 150 local Healthwatch organisations across England. As well as listening to people’s experiences and feeding them back to local health and social care organisations, they also offer information and advice.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation
• Health and health care

A way of helping people get home from hospital sooner by getting health and care organisations to look at how well they work in a local area, and how they could make changes.

Categories

• Hospital

Related Jargon

• Delayed discharge

Care and support that respects and responds to people as ‘a whole person’ and considers all their needs, wishes and feelings at the same time – physical, psychological, social and spiritual.

Care and support that people draw on in their own home, where paid care workers support people with their daily life. It is also known as domiciliary care.

Home care workers are usually employed by an independent agency, and the service may be arranged by the person’s local council or by them (or someone acting on their behalf).

Categories

• Care and support services

An approach to support people to remain in, or return to, their own home, and to receive assessment, support and treatment there rather than in hospital.

Categories

• Hospital
• Ways of working

An arrangement where someone who needs some help to live independently in their own home (the householder) is matched with someone who needs a place to live in return for the help they can provide (the homesharer). Homesharers help around the house and provide company, but do not provide personal care. There are homeshare organisations in a number of areas to match up householders and homesharers.

Categories

• Housing with care and support

When someone in a person’s family or community hurts them for bringing ‘shame’ or a ‘bad name’ to the family or community.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

A way that organisations plan for the future by looking ahead at how an area might change, what people’s needs are likely to be, and which services are likely to be available and which will need to be developed.

Health treatment that a person receives in their own home that they would otherwise receive in hospital. It is usually provided by experienced nurses, for a limited period, and can help people avoid going into hospital or mean they can come home from hospital sooner.

Categories

• Health and health care
• Hospital

A way of helping people communicate what they need when they are in hospital. It is a document that provides information for hospital staff about the person, including their likes and dislikes, interests, and other things. Many hospitals have their own version for people to fill in if they have a hospital stay coming up.

Categories

• Communication
• Hospital

A way of organising a care home so that it feels more like a private home than an institution, with small groups of people living together in separate sections of the home. The aim is that people feel like they are living in a homely environment.

Categories

• Housing with care and support

The basic rights and freedoms available to everyone, regardless of their age, nationality, race, ethnicity, gender or religion and beliefs. Human rights protect people in their every day life.

In the UK, human rights are protected by the Human Rights Act 1998. The Act sets out 16 human rights in a series of articles. These include the right to life, freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, right to liberty and security, right to respect for private and family life, and protection from discrimination.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Related Jargon

• Rights

The human rights model of disability is based on basic human rights principles. It recognises that disability is a natural part of human diversity, and that physical or mental impairments must not be used as an excuse to deny or restrict people’s rights. This model puts the person at the centre of all conversations and decisions about them. Like the social model, it locates the ‘problem’ outside the person and within society, emphasising the responsibility of the state to remove barriers and ensure full respect for the dignity and human rights of all people.

Other models include the medical model, charity model and social model.

Categories

• Disability
• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Related Jargon

• Charity model of disability
• Medical model of disability
• Social model of disability

A type of flexible working where people spend some of their time in an office or other workplace, and some of their time working from home or from another place.

Categories

• Ways of working

Identity first language refers to disability, diagnosis, or health condition first. For example, ‘disabled people’, ‘autistic people’, ‘deaf people’.

The thinking behind this language is to recognise that these are defining characteristics of the person and part of their identity, describing who the person ‘is’ rather than what the person ‘has’. This language fits with the social model of disability.

Categories

• Communication
• Disability

Related Jargon

• Person first language
• Social model of disability

A way of paying for long-term care and support. The person who requires support makes a big payment to an insurance company, and gets a regular income, which is guaranteed for their lifetime to pay their care costs. There are many companies selling annuities, and independent information on the different options can be found at www.societyoflaterlifeadvisers.co.uk .

Categories

• Money

Whether or not a person has permission to live, work or study in a country.

In the UK, the Home Office – which is part of the UK Government – gives people who are not from the UK permission to stay in the UK. The person’s immigration status is the type of permission they have to be here. ‘Asylum-seeker’, ‘refugee status’, ‘humanitarian protection’, ‘limited leave to remain’ and ‘discretionary leave’ are all types of immigration status.

A physical or mental characteristic of a person that they may have been born with, or that may have been caused by injury or illness.

The Equality Act 2010 definition of disability says that a person is disabled if they have a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

Categories

• Disability

Related Jargon

• Disability

When a person is not specifically asked if they agree to something being done to them, but they behave as if they understand and agree. For example, putting their arm out when a nurse or doctor comes to take a blood sample suggests ‘implied consent’ on the person’s part. Implied consent also applies if a person is unconscious in an emergency. Medical staff may assume that a person would agree to treatment if it is necessary to save their life.

Categories

• Decision-making

Related Jargon

• Consent

An NHS programme to support people with mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression.

Now usually referred to as ‘Talking Therapies’.

Categories

• Mental health

Care that is not best for a person and does not meet their particular needs, or is not in a place where they need or choose to be.

Meeting the needs of everyone in a community by taking action to create an environment where everyone feels comfortable, respected and able to achieve their potential. It means treating people as equals and removing barriers that may stop them participating in an event or activity.

Categories

• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Support for a person to understand and remember information, make decisions, and communicate their wishes and feelings.

The advocate is ‘independent’ because they are not connected to the person or to a health or social care organisation.

Categories

• Decision-making

Someone who supports a person to understand and remember information, make decisions and communicate their wishes and feelings. They will also speak up for a person if the person needs them to. Independent advocates cannot be family members, friends or neighbours.

Under the Care Act 2014, councils have a duty to involve independent advocates to support people who would otherwise find it very difficult to be fully involved in conversations and decisions, and where there is no one else appropriate to advocate for the person.

Categories

• Decision-making
• People
• Workforce

A worker who supports people at high risk of harm from their partner, ex-partners or family members. IDVAs work to secure people’s safety and the safety of their children.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect
• Workforce

When a person has choice and control over their life, and access to the support they require to live the life they choose to lead.

Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) recognises the equal right of all disabled people to live independently and be included in the community, with choices equal to non-disabled people. It says that people should be able to choose where they live and who they live with, and should have access to the support their require – including personal assistance – to live independently.

Categories

• Disability
• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Related Jargon

• Independence

A service that should be offered to people if they are being treated in hospital or somewhere else under the Mental Health Act. Independent Mental Health Advocates are there to help people understand their legal rights, and to help make their views heard.

This is not the same as Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy (IMCA), which is for people who are unable to make certain decisions and have no one to support or represent them. But there may be times when someone needs both an IMHA and an IMCA.

Categories

• Decision-making
• Mental health

A panel that people can ask for something to be looked at again. For example, if someone has been told that the NHS will not fund their continuing health care, and they think the wrong decision has been made, they can appeal to an independent review panel.

The panel will be made up of people who have not had any previous involvement with the person or their situation, and who can investigate why the decision was made and whether it is right or wrong.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation
• Health and health care

Related Jargon

• Continuing health care (CHC)

Organisations that are independent of the NHS, local councils and other publicly-run bodies. Independent sector organisations may be voluntary and non-profit-making, or they may be private organisations that exist to make a profit. The majority of care and support services are provided by the independent sector (even if they are funded by local councils). Some health services are also provided by the independent sector, with NHS funding, so that they are free for people when they use them.

A trained person who provides advice and support, independent of the local council, to parents whose child is being assessed for an Education, Health and Care plan. Independent supporters often work for a charity. They can explain the process, help people to understand the support available, and ensure people have all the information they need.

Categories

• Workforce

A rough guide to how much it will cost a local council to meet a person’s care and support needs.

An indicative amount should be shared with the person, and anybody else involved, at the start of care and support planning.

The indicative amount may increase or decrease depending on the decisions made in planning support, but the final, signed-off personal budget must always be sufficient to meet the person’s eligible care and support needs.

Categories

• Care and support planning
• Money
• Self-directed support and personal budgets

Related Jargon

• Eligible care and support needs
• Personal budget

A way of managing a personal budget where the money is held by a ‘third party’ organisation in a managed account. The person remains in control of what the money is spent on, but doesn’t have the responsibility of managing the budget.

Categories

• Money
• Self-directed support and personal budgets

Related Jargon

• Personal budget

Someone who is in a mental health ward in hospital who is there by choice and can leave if they wish. This is different to a formal patient, who does not have the freedom to leave.

Categories

• Hospital
• Mental health
• People

Related Jargon

• Informal patient

The process of sharing information about a person and their care and support with other people, like social workers or doctors, or other organisations, like hospitals and care homes.

Categories

• Keeping information safe

When a person has received the right information to enable them to decide whether to allow someone to do something to or for them.

People should only give consent if they understand what they are being asked to agree to, what the benefits and risks might be, and what the alternatives are if they do not agree.

Categories

• Decision-making

Doing something in a new and different way, with the aim of doing it better.

Harm that is caused to people by poor care or support provided by an organisation, caused not just by the actions of individuals but by the way the organisation works (such as their routines or structures). It can happen in care homes, hospitals, schools and other places.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

Related Jargon

• Abuse

When people are treated differently because of things like their age, race or disability, because of the way an organisation works rather than because of the way that individual people behave, and when an organisation’s routines and procedures become more important than individual people’s needs.

Categories

• Discrimination
• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Related Jargon

• Discrimination

Joined up, coordinated health and social care that is planned and organised around people and families. This may also involve integration with other services, for example housing.

Categories

• Joined-up health and social care

Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) replaced Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in the NHS in England from 1 July 2022.

ICBs are responsible for developing plans and arranging services to meet the health needs of people living in a particular geographic area.

Categories

• Joined-up health and social care

A description of what it looks like in an area when health and social care work together for people. The model explains what needs to happen, what the outcomes will be for people, and what the wider benefits are.

Categories

• Joined-up health and social care

An organisation that brings together different health and care services in a single system in a specific local area.

Categories

• Joined-up health and social care

Integrated care systems (ICSs) are partnerships that bring together the health and care organisations in a particular local area, serving anywhere between 600,000 and million people, to work together more closely and provide joined-up care and support. The 42 integrated care systems replace the old NHS clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and lead on funding and planning healthcare services in their local areas.

Each ICS is made up of an integrated care board (ICB) and an integrated care partnership (ICP).

Categories

• Joined-up health and social care

A single personal budget that covers the health and social care support a person may need. It is being introduced gradually, and is currently only available in some areas. Also known as a ‘joint personal budget’, it means the person has a single care plan, control of the money needed to fund their care and support, and can make decisions about how this money is spent to best meet their needs.

Categories

• Joined-up health and social care

A partnership between the Local Government Association and NHS England launched in April 2015 that aimed to join up health, social care and education services around people rather than organisations. It was part of the delivery of the NHS Five Year Forward View.

Categories

• Joined-up health and social care

Where more than one organisation is working together on something.

Temporary arrangements that are made while people are waiting for longer-term care and support.

Short-term care and support aimed to help people to recover after being in hospital, or to prevent people going in to hospital.

There are four types of intermediate care:

– crisis response – services providing short-term care (up to 48 hours)
– home-based – support from a team of mainly health professionals such as nurses and therapists that people draw on in their own home
– bed-based intermediate care – care and support away from the person’s home, for example, in a community hospital
– reablement – support from a team of social care workers that people draw on in their own home.

Intermediate care is available for a limited time, usually up to six weeks, and is free of charge.

Categories

• Care and support services
• Hospital

The relationship between characteristics such as race, gender, and disability, and how they overlap and interact with each other to affect people’s experiences and outcomes, linked to systemic disadvantage and discrimination.

Categories

• Discrimination
• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Action of some kind where someone gets involved to improve a situation or prevent it getting worse.

Where organisations work together to coordinate conversations with people requiring support, to develop a shared understanding and shared plans, and avoid people having to have lots of different assessments.

Categories

• Assessment

Related Jargon

• Assessment

When two or more organisations in a local area – usually the NHS and local council – work together to plan services to meet the needs of people who live in the area. Together the commissioners plan what kind of services should be available, who should provide them and how they should be paid for.

Categories

• Commissioning

Related Jargon

• Commissioning

Care and support arranged or funded by both the NHS and social care, following a person’s needs assessment.

People can draw on care and support arranged or funded jointly in their own home, a nursing or care home, or by way of a joint personal budget.

People may have a joint package of care if they have health needs as well as care and support needs. If their main need is for health care, this is known as a primary health need and they may be entitled to continuing health care.

Categories

• Assessment
• Joined-up health and social care

The process of identifying the future health, care and wellbeing needs of the population in a particular area, and planning services to help meet those needs. This process is led by local councils, working with the NHS and private and voluntary organisations in specific areas.

Categories

• Assessment
• Joined-up health and social care

A type of court case in which a judge looks at whether a decision made by a public body such as a local council has been made in the right way, and whether they had the right to make it. It does not rule on whether the right decision has been made, but whether the right process has been followed. People can get advice from a solicitor about applying for judicial review if they believe that an organisation has not followed the law in making a decision about something that affects them.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation
• Law and legislation

Having mental capacity means that a person is able to make their own choices and decisions.

Someone may lack mental capacity to make a specific decision at the time it needs to be made if they can’t:

– understand information about a particular decision
– remember that information long enough to make the decision
– use the information to make the decision, or
– communicate their decision.

A person may lack capacity due to an injury, impairment, health condition, medication or drug and alcohol use.

Every person must be assumed to have capacity. Assumptions must not be made about people’s capacity based on their age or appearance.

Categories

• Decision-making

Related Jargon

• Mental Capacity Act 2005

A lasting power of attorney (LPA) is a legal document that lets a person (the ‘donor’) appoint one or more people (known as ‘attorneys’) to help them make decisions or to make decisions on their behalf.

This gives people more control over what happens to them if they have an accident or an illness and cannot make a decision because they lack mental capacity.

There are two types of LPA – ‘health and welfare’ and ‘property and financial affairs.’ People can choose to make one type or both.

People must be 18 or over and be able to make their own decisions when they make an LPA.

Categories

• Decision-making
• Law and legislation

The main person or organisation that arranges the care and support available in an area to meet the needs of the population.

Categories

• Commissioning
• Workforce

A central person involved in providing and coordinating a person’s care, and a single point of contact for them.

Categories

• Workforce

When a person learns in a different way or at a different pace. Dyslexia and dyscalculia are examples of learning difficulties.

The term learning difficulty should not be used instead of learning disability, which is a reduced intellectual ability.

Related Jargon

• Learning disability

A national research programme looking at why people with a learning disability often die at a younger age than other non-learning disabled people.

LeDeR reports to NHS England on the main causes of these deaths and on how they could be prevented.

A life-long reduced intellectual ability.

Categories

• Disability

Under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, where a person is found to lack capacity, any act done or decision made for or on behalf of the person must be done or made in their best interests and in a way that is least restrictive of the person’s rights and freedom of action.

Under the Care Act 2014, local councils must make sure that any restrictions on a person’s rights or freedom of action are kept to the minimum necessary.

Categories

• Decision-making

If a person has a deferred payment agreement and the council is paying their care home fees until their home is sold, the ‘legal mortgage charge’ is the amount that must be repaid to the council when the sale takes place.

Categories

• Money

Related Jargon

• Deferred payments

When someone is legally responsible for something and can be forced to take responsibility.

Where a local council treats a person as if a financial assessment has been carried out, because the council is satisfied that the person can provide evidence to show that they can afford to (and are willing to) pay the full cost of their care and support.

Local councils may also consider a light-touch financial assessment where there is a very small cost for a service which the person is clearly able to meet, or where a person receives benefits which demonstrate they would not be able to contribute towards the cost of their care and support.

Categories

• Assessment
• Money

Related Jargon

• Financial assessment

An approach used by some councils to support people to live good lives. Local area coordinators are employed by councils to work alongside people, families and communities to identify and build on their strengths and aspirations, and to connect people up with community-based sources of support.

Local Area Coordination prevents problems from getting bigger, reducing people’s need for more formal services and for crisis support.

Categories

• Ways of working

A phrase used to describe local councils.

A local authority may be:
– a county council
– a district council for an area where there is no county council
– a London borough council, or
– the Common Council of the City of London

An organisation appointed by the government to investigate complaints about local councils and adult social care providers (including care homes and home care agencies).

Categories

• Assurance and regulation

A Local Offer lets parents and young people know what special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support is available in a local area.

It shows people what they can expect from a range of local organisations including schools and colleges, the NHS, the local council, and the voluntary and community sector.

Categories

• Children and young people

When power to make decisions, and to spend money, is transferred from central government to local organisations such as councils. The aim is to make decisions close to the people who will be affected by them, and to ask for people’s views.

Categories

• Decision-making

An illness or health condition that people live with, that cannot be cured but can usually be managed with medicines or other treatments. Asthma, diabetes, arthritis, and epilepsy are examples of long-term conditions.

Categories

• Health and health care

The lower capital limit is £14,250. If a person has capital (usually property and savings) between the upper limit (£23,250) and lower limit, they will have to pay £1 per week towards their care and support costs for every £250 in capital between the two amounts.

If a person’s capital is below the lower capital limit, they will not need to contribute to the cost of their care and support from their capital.

Categories

• Money

Related Jargon

• Capital limits
• Financial assessment
• Upper Capital Limit

The main, usual or most common way that things like healthcare or education are provided. Mainstream services are the opposite of specialist services, which are designed for specific groups of people.

An approach to safeguarding adults who are at risk of, or experiencing, abuse and neglect. The approach focuses on people rather than process. The response to the safeguarding situation is determined by the person, who is fully involved in decisions and has choice about, and control over, what should happen next to improve their quality of life, wellbeing and safety.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

When a public body such as a local council does something wrong or is failing. This could include flaws in policies or decision making, failure to follow statutory guidance or fulfil statutory duties, failure to provide adequate services, and poor practice.

The relevant Ombudsman can be asked to investigate alleged or apparent maladministration or service failure. The Ombudsman will weigh up all the evidence and make a judgement.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation

Related Jargon

• Ombudsman

A way to use a personal budget where the money is held by an organisation. The organisation arranges care and support for the person in line with their wishes.

A managed account is either held by the local coiuncil or by a third party (often called an Individual Service Fund or ISF).

A managed account is sometimes called a managed budget or a virtual budget.

Categories

• Self-directed support and personal budgets

Related Jargon

• Managed budget
• Personal budget

A way to use a personal budget where the money is held by an organisation. The organisation arranges care and support for the person in line with their wishes.

A managed budget is either held by the local council or by a third party (often called an Individual Service Fund or ISF).

A managed budget is sometimes called a managed account or a virtual budget.

Categories

• Self-directed support and personal budgets

Related Jargon

• Managed account
• Personal budget

A way to understand what already exists in an area (sometimes called ‘assets’) and identify what is missing. This can help to inform conversations and plans. It makes sure what is already in place is appreciated and helps people make decisions about what else might need to be available in different places.

The way in which local councils make sure there are a variety of care and support services in their area to meet all the different needs of everyone who lives there. Councils need to have a good understanding of what people need, where the service providers are, and where the gaps are.

Categories

• Commissioning

Related Jargon

• Commissioning

When a commissioner such as a local council controls which care and support services are available in their area, through the choices they make about who they place contracts with.

Categories

• Commissioning

Related Jargon

• Commissioning

The job of overseeing the finances of certain adult social care providers in a particular area that are considered to be hard to replace if they stopped existing. This is to help protect people who draw on care and support, and help councils make sure that care continues to be available to people who need it. This role is carried out by the Care Quality Commission.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation

Related Jargon

• Care Quality Commission (CQC)

A description of what care and support services are available in a particular area, what services will be needed in the future, and what the commissioner will do to make sure that the services people need are available (regardless of who funds them). Every local council has to produce a Market Position Statement, which should contain detailed information on what is needed in the area and what the council’s plans are.

Categories

• Commissioning

Related Jargon

• Commissioner
• Market facilitation
• Market management
• Market shaping

The way in which a council looks at what people’s care and support needs are in the local area, considers what care and support services are available in that area, and works out where the gaps are and how they can be filled. The aim is to make sure that people can find care and support that meets their needs, and that a variety of options are available to suit people’s individual circumstances and preferences.

Where people have the opportunity and support to express their views to organisations, say what they need and make their own decisions.

Related Jargon

• Engagement

The amount of money a person pays towards the cost of their care and support.

The means test is called a financial assessment. This is how a local council works out how much a person can afford to pay towards the cost of their care and support.

Categories

• Money

Using some kind of equipment to prevent a person moving their body freely, in order to prevent their actions hurting themselves or someone else.

Related Jargon

• Physical intervention

A way of solving disputes or disagreements without going to court. It involves people who are disagreeing meeting together, along with a mediator who is a trained, independent person. The aim is to find something the people can agree on. Mediation can take place between family members, or between an individual or family and an organisation.

An item of equipment that is used to diagnose, prevent or treat illness or look after people’s health. There are many kinds of medical device, from the simple to the highly complex. A thermometer, an implant, an artificial limb and a wheelchair are all examples of medical devices.

Categories

• Equipment, adaptations and technology

The medical model of disability describes disability as something a person has, like an illness, and something that needs to be prevented, cured, treated, or overcome. This model views disability as a problem located within the person. It focuses on what people can’t do and tries to fix the person through medical treatment, operations, or equipment.

Other models include the charity model, social model and human rights model.

Categories

• Disability

Related Jargon

• Charity model of disability
• Human rights model of disability
• Social model of disability

Having mental capacity means that a person is able to make their own choices and decisions.

Someone may lack mental capacity if they can’t:

– understand information about a particular decision
– remember that information long enough to make the decision
– use the information to make the decision, or
– communicate their decision.

People must be assumed to have capacity to make their own decisions and be given all practicable help before anyone treats them as not being able to make their own decisions.

Where there is concern about a person’s capacity to make a specific decision, for example as a result of a mental impairment such as dementia, acquired brain injury or a learning disability, an assessment of capacity should be carried out under the Mental Capacity Act.

Where an adult is found to lack capacity to make a decision then any action taken, or any decision made for, or on their behalf, must be made in their best interests.

Categories

• Decision-making

A law that is designed to protect people who are unable to make decisions about their care and support, property or finances.

Under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, a person lacks capacity in relation to a matter if they are unable to make a specific decision at a specific time, because of an impairment of, or a disturbance in the functioning of, the mind or brain.

Assessments of capacity must always be made on a individual basis, in relation to the specific decision to be made. Assumptions should not be made due to the existence of a particular condition, or about whole groups of people.

The Act applies to everyone involved in the care, treatment and support of people aged 16 and over living in England.

The Act has five principles.
1: Assume a person has capacity unless proved otherwise.
2: Don’t treat people as unable to make a decision unless everything possible has been done to help them make the decision without success.
3: Don’t treat a person as unable to make a decision because their decision may seem unwise.
4: Always do things or take decisions for people without capacity in their best interests.
5. Before doing something to a person or making a decision on their behalf, think about whether the outcome could be achieved in a way that is less restrictive of the person’s rights and freedom of action.

Categories

• Decision-making
• Law and legislation

A law that tells people with mental health challenges what their rights are and how they can be treated and supported.

People can be detained in hospital under various sections of the Act. This is also known as ‘sectioning’.

Categories

• Law and legislation
• Mental health

Related Jargon

• Sectioning

Mental health support provided to people after they leave hospital.

Under Section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983, the NHS and local councils have a duty to provide mental health after-care support for people who have been detained in hospital under certain sections of the 1983 Act.

The support must meet the needs arising from their mental health challenges and reduce the risk of the person requiring further hospital treatment for their mental health.

Categories

• Law and legislation
• Mental health

Related Jargon

• Section 117

A person who commissions care and support, either for themselves using a direct payment, or on behalf of someone.

Categories

• Commissioning

Related Jargon

• Micro-commissioning

Arranging care and support for an individual person with independent sector and voluntary sector providers

Categories

• Commissioning

When a person leaves hospital needing little or no care and support. If people need ongoing care and support, their discharge is described as ‘complex’.

Categories

• Hospital

Related Jargon

• Complex discharge

The rules around charging for care and support state that a person who draws on care and support outside a care home must have enough money to pay for their daily living costs, like food, rent and other bills. The minimum income guarantee (MIG) is set out in the Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulation 2014.

Categories

• Money

When a person chooses to use their personal budget in more than one of the following ways: to pay for support arranged by their local council, to pay for support arranged by a third party (usually an individual service fund or ISF), or as a direct payment. This may also be called a mixed package of care.

Categories

• Self-directed support and personal budgets

When a person chooses to use their personal budget in more than one of the following ways: to pay for support arranged by their local council, to pay for support arranged by a third party (usually an individual service fund or ISF), or as a direct payment.

Categories

• Self-directed support and personal budgets

A way of providing care and support based on a set of beliefs and principles about what is right and works best. There are various different ways of providing care, and each organisation will decide which model to use.

Different ways of thinking and communicating about disability. The main models are the medical, charity, social and human rights models.

Categories

• Disability

Related Jargon

• Charity model of disability
• Human rights model of disability
• Medical model of disability
• Social model of disability

Different ways of thinking and communicating about disability. The main models are the medical, charity, social and human rights models.

Categories

• Assurance and regulation
• Workforce

A state of poor health, due to a specific illness.

Categories

• Health and health care

The number of people who have died of a disease in relation to the number of people who get the disease, and in relation to the population as a whole.

Support to move, lift or reposition a person who is not physically able to move themselves.

The approach aims to reduce the number of other people involved, through the use of specialist equipment and techniques.

Related Jargon

• Double handed care
• Manual handling
• Single handed care

An event that lasts for one or more days, when a team of senior workers from a hospital, community services and the local council look at how people who are staying in hospital can be supported to go home. They visit people on hospital wards, with a particular focus on people who have been in hospital for a week or more. They look at what support people need at home, and aim to solve problems and reduce delays.

Categories

• Hospital

A regular meeting in local areas where information is shared between different organisations (such as the council, police, health services and others) about people who are at high risk of domestic violence or abuse. The organisations at the meeting discuss how to help people who are at risk of harm, and create an action plan to make them safer.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect
• Joined-up health and social care

Related Jargon

• Safeguarding

When different organisations work together.

Categories

• Joined-up health and social care

A team of different professionals (such as doctors, nurses, therapists, psychologists, social workers, and others) working together to provide care and support that meets people’s needs. The team brings together many different types of knowledge, skills and expertise, and should work with the ‘whole person’, rather than just responding to specific areas of need.

Often referred to as an MDT.

Categories

• Joined-up health and social care

When a person has two or more long-term health conditions at the same time, that may require ongoing support and treatment. The way this affects a person’s health will depend on the conditions they have.

Categories

• Health and health care

People working together to achieve something that they both, or all, want to achieve. Everyone has something they are responsible for doing, and something they can expect to gain or receive.

Related Jargon

• Co-production
• Reciprocity

A worker who helps a person to organise their care and support. This could be, for example, a social worker, practitioner working for a voluntary or community sector organisation, or lead nurse.

Categories

• Workforce

A specific social worker identified to work with a person.

Having a named social worker means the person knows who to contact, can develop more of a relationship with the worker, and should mean there is more coordination and continuity.

Categories

• Workforce

An organisation that provides advice and guidance to improve health and social care in England and Wales. It looks at all the evidence on what works and what doesn’t and how much it costs, and advises on what treatment and care should be offered to people. It doesn’t have the power to insist that its guidance is followed in local areas.

Categories

• Standards and best practice

Related Jargon

• NICE guidelines

The basic level a person’s care and support needs must reach before their local council has a legal duty to meet them.

The Care and Support (Eligibility Criteria) Regulations 2015 set the national minimum eligibility threshold for meeting people’s care and support needs and carers’ support needs. It was introduced to make decision making about eligibility clearer, and the same across different areas.

The threshold is based on identifying how a person’s needs affect their ability to achieve relevant outcomes, and how this impacts on their wellbeing. All councils must comply with the national threshold.

Categories

• Assessment
• Needs

Support that may already be there for a person, from their family or friends. It exists ‘naturally’ and in the relationships they have, and does not have to be formally planned or commissioned.

Something that is not supposed to happen and is prevented before harm is caused.

A legal term that is used in the Mental Health Act 1983 to refer to a single member of a person’s family who is given certain rights and responsibilities if they are kept in hospital (also known as being ‘sectioned’). It is not the same as ‘next of kin’ and may not necessarily be the person who has power of attorney (where this is in place). The law decides who a person’s nearest relative is, and although the person cannot choose who this is, it can sometimes be changed.

A person’s nearest relative can ask for a Mental Health Act assessment to decide if the person should be kept in hospital. They can also apply to discharge a person from the Mental Health Act.

Categories

• Law and legislation
• Mental health
• People

Care and support provided by an unpaid carer – usually a family member or friend – to help someone to do things they require assistance with.

Categories

• Carers

Services that are personalised to a person’s particular needs, rather than their needs having to fit into the services that already exist. This approach can apply to health and care services and to education.

When a person isn’t given the care and support they need. This could include:
– ignoring a person’s medical, emotional or physical care needs
– failure to provide access to appropriate health, care and support or educational services, and
– withholding things a person needs, like medication, enough food, and heating.

Categories

• Abuse and neglect

Related Jargon

• Abuse
• Safeguarding

Neurodivergence is state of being neurodivergent.

Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Dyspraxia, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia and Tourette’s Syndrome are forms of neurodivergence.

Categories

• Neurodiversity

Related Jargon

• Neurodivergent

Neurotypical describes people with brains that work in a ‘typical’ way. The opposite of neurotypical is neurodivergent, not neurodiverse.

Categories

• Neurodiversity

Related Jargon

• Neurodivergent
• Neurodiversity