Are you a carer?

A date will be agreed with you and your lead worker to review your Adult Carer Support Plan to make sure that it still reflects your current situation. However, it can be reviewed at any time if/when circumstances change.

At this time, your lead worker will contact you to have a further conversation with you about your caring role and the impact that this is having on your life. This will include looking at your agreed outcomes and identifying whether all or some of these have been met, or whether other assistance is needed to help you achieve them.

Your situation may change over time: there might be a change in your own health or in the health of the person that you look after, which means that a review of your Adult Carer Support Plan out with normal timescales may be necessary.

The review may identify that some of your outcomes have been met, or that they are no longer appropriate. The level of support you receive may change as a result of this review, as it will be reflective of your situation at that time. This could mean that any previously agreed Self-Directed Support funding may be subject to change.

Not all carers will require support, however, eligibility criteria have been set to ensure those carers who are most in need are able to get the right level of support at the right time.

If your caring role has a low to moderate impact, preventative support can be provided to help avoid a crisis arising, as well as helping you sustain your caring role in the longer-term if this is your choice. This support is provided, in the main, by Lanarkshire Carers or by dedicated services and organisations.

However, if it has been identified through an Adult Carer Support Plan conversation that your caring role is having a significant impact on you, then you may meet the local eligibility criteria. If so, then the local authority has a duty to provide support for these ‘eligible needs.’  This may include the provision of funding for replacement care for the person you care for to allow you to have a complete break from your caring role, for example.

Remember, you can still receive support from Lanarkshire Carers to help meet your low to moderate needs at that same time as receiving support from the local authority to help meet any critical and substantial needs that have been identified.

For more information, please read Local Eligibility Criteria for young carers and adult carers.

The Social Care (Self-Directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 is an Act of the Scottish Parliament that ensures that local authorities offer self-directed support to anyone who requires support services, including unpaid carers who require support to help them maintain their caring role.

If it has been recognised that you have eligible needs, then in some cases you may be offered help to meet your specific outcomes that have been identified when progressing your Adult Carer Support Plan. If this is the case, then as a carer, you may have access to Self-Directed Support.

The use of any funding that is offered should be discussed and agreed with your allocated lead worker. These discussions should include:/p>

• how the support will be delivered to meet the agreed outcomes
• what form this should take; and
• ensure that there is a transparent and clear link to the Adult Carer Support Plan

For more information, please read Self-directed Support (SDS)

The work of unpaid carers is very much appreciated and recognised by everyone at South Lanarkshire University Health and Social Care Partnership.

The Partnership works closely with commissioned partners Lanarkshire Carers, NHS Lanarkshire and a wide range of local services to provide a package of support for unpaid carers.

As part of our on-going commitment to improving help we offer the unpaid caring population in South Lanarkshire, a post of Carers’ Lead for the local authority was created in 2023. This role is focused on service development and workforce upskilling in relation to the range of issues impacting unpaid carers. 

The Carers’ Lead has focused on introducing a new way by which South Lanarkshire Council Social Work will work with carers in relation to identifying needs and life goals. Designed in partnership with Lanarkshire Carers, the new style SLC Adult Carer Support Plans will be introduced in 2025 and will be based around a conversation with the carer in relation to their role and what outcomes they want to achieve.

You may be aware that back in 2019 we introduced eligibility criteria which positioned the organisation as supporting those supported people and carers at the highest level of need.

Subsequently, we introduced a banding system to ensure a more standardised delivery of funded support to unpaid carers within the local authority. Since the change, carers who receive support from the Partnership have been brought into the new support system. There will be no changes to carers’ funded support until all circumstances and needs are fully considered.

If you or a loved one are an unpaid carer and would like some help and advice, information on the supports available in South Lanarkshire can be found in our related content section and also Lanarkshire Carers website.