Car
e Management is the process for assessing individuals’ needs for social care services. It is integral to the social care system and how care users experience it. It is carried out by local authority staff known as Care Managers, usually social workers, occupational therapists or nurses.
UNISON’s Social Work Issues Group carried out a survey of social work staff to gather views about this model and whether it is helping or hindering the preventative, person-centred and relationship-based practice called for in the Independent Review of Adult Social Care (the ‘Feeley Review’).
Findings
The survey findings presents a picture of a care management system on its knees, cash starved, crisis driven, with no capacity for preventative or relationship-based practice.
- Two thirds of respondents (65%) feel the model is not meeting the needs of the people they support.
- A majority (71%) think care management as practiced in their authority does not enable relationship-based, preventative practice.