1. The Health and Social Care Bill and carers Christine Rowley Carers Co-ordinator, Dudley MBC

2. General Provisions Expected to become law in April 2015 Duty on LAs to promote the wellbeing of adults receiving care and of carers receiving support Duty on LAs to provide information and advice relating to care and support Duty on LAs to provide preventative services

3. Right to carer’s assessment Any carer with needs should be assessed Assessment automatically offered Can be offered even if cared for person not being assessed No regular & substantial care requirement Nothing really new – tidying up legislation

4. Some issues re assessment Carers organisations say that, as the Care Bill only covers carers of adults, parent carers could end up with lesser rights-needs to be amendments to the Children and Families Bill The government has already agreed to make changes to the CaF Bill to provide comparable rights to young carers – who may be carers for adults and/or children

5. Rights to services New duty to provide services to meet eligible needs There will be nationally set eligibility criteria for both carers and the people they care for Carers UK pressing for LAs duty to meet the equivalent of the current FACs ‘moderate needs’ No detailed guidance yet

6. Whose services? which services are carers services and which are services for the cared for person LAs will have the power to charge for services Most carers eligible needs will still continue to be met by support to the cared for person Carers in Dudley already benefit from wide range of services

7. Any money? Extra funding- about 1.1 million for Dudley:162K for work on assessments – rest on services We don’t yet know who will get money and what conditions will be attached Likely to be emphasis on collaborative commissioning and personal budgets

8. What can you do now Complete the Carer Aware and Young Carer Aware courseCarer Aware Young Carer Aware Use the Making it Real checklist to evaluate the way you work with carers Consider the carer fully in your assessments Refer carers to the Carers Network or to other appropriate local supportCarers Network