People at the heart of care

This will include looking at the advice and guidance available from the very start of a person’s social care journey, encouraging them to plan for the future by identifying their strengths and finding ways to keep themselves healthier and independent for longer. It will help people to assess their own needs themselves, capturing people's experiences in their own words, allowing quicker, fuller, and more holistic assessment of a person's needs before determining if or when they may need support. 

We understand the benefits of keeping people independent for longer.  We will get the right support to people to help them keep their independence, building on their own strengths. Helping people to stay in their own homes for as long as possible is a key aim, as is  making the best use of new and developing digital care technologies to help people stay in touch with families, caregivers, and friends. 

Giving people more choice and control over the care and support they receive is a key part of our transformation. This is because people want to feel in control of the care they receive, and because we believe that social care should be done with people, not to people. We will utilise the power of individual budgets, where we give people the tools to commission their own care from providers, to achieve this, and will look to increase the care options available to people by creating a new online marketplace of care and support providers.