Community Care for Adults

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Can we help you?

Our job is to help older and disabled adults who live in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames to keep their independence, stay safe and enjoy a reasonable quality of life.  We may be able to offer you services if:

• You are an older person and frail
• You are physically disabled or ill
• You have a sight or hearing loss
• You have a mental illness, making it difficult for you to cope with everyday life
• You need support because of a learning disability
• You have problems with drugs or alcohol
• You are living with HIV
• You need help to look after a family member or friend
• You need to stay safe and free from harm

Getting a service

Before we can offer you our services we will need to talk to you about your care and support needs. This is called an assessment. We only provide services to people who have or are soon likely to have 'Critical' or 'Substantial' needs. These needs include situations where:

• You are being abused or likely to be abused or neglected
• Your health is poor resulting in the need for medical care
• You cannot manage your own personal care
• You cannot make important decisions for yourself
• Your work or education is or is likely to be disrupted
• The people who support you can no longer care for you
• You cannot carry out normal parenting or family responsibilities

Our leaflet called 'Helping adults keep safe and independent' (see bottom of this page) tells you more about our services and how we decide who we help.

Personal Budgets - a new way to get help!

Now there is a new way of getting social services help if you are an adult who needs support to stay independent, safe and well. It’s called a ‘Personal Budget’. A Personal Budget is a sum of money you can use to choose the support you need to achieve what you want in your life and live it your way.

The scheme is easy to use and there’s help to get you started if you need it. You can even have a mixture of money and social services if that suits you better. You can find out more about Personal Budgets by visiting our 'Personal Budgets' web page (see the link on the left hand side of this page). You will also be able to download our leaflet called 'Personal Budgets - Living your life your way' and a podcast (audio file) from this page.

Personal Budgets are part of some bigger changes that are taking place across the country and here in Kingston. These changes are known as 'Transforming Adult Social Care'. You can find out more about these changes and tell us what you think of our plans to bring them about in Kingston by going to our web page called 'Transforming Social Care' (see the link on the left hand side of this page).

Information in Community languages

We have produced some simple information about who we are and what we do in several community languages (see bottom of this page). These languages include Urdu, Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, French, Gujarati, Korean, Lingala, Portugese, Punjabi, Tamil and English.

Contact Community Care Services

Please contact us if you need help or advice for yourself, or if you are concerned about the welfare of another person.

Telephone: 020 8547 5757
Minicom: 020 8547 5819
Fax: 020 8547 6153
Text: 07797 806 521

Our Services

We aim to offer you and the people caring for you, the best possible services and support so that you can live independently in your own home or in a nursing or residential home.

Care and Support Services Directory (July 2008)
You can find the Community Care Services 2007 guide that you can find at the bottom of this page that covers all community care services that we offer to adults living in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames.

Our Charter
Our 'Better Care, Higher Standards' Charter is for everyone living in Kingston who is 18 or over having difficulties because of old age, long term illness or disability, and family members and friends who support people in these situations. The Charter tells everyone who needs care or support over the long term what you can expect from your local Housing, Health and Social Services.

Service Updates

Government consultation on the future of care and support services

The Government has launched a major public consultation on the future of care and support services in England.

There are three main parts to the consultation:

• Improving care and support - What more can the Government do to provide: Better information? Higher quality services? Preventative services? Personalised services?
• Paying for care and support - If you need care and support, who should pay for it: You? Your family? The Government using taxation?
• Providing financial help for care and support - If you need care and support, should the financial help you get depend on: The kind of support you need? Where you live? How much money you have?

To find out more

If you want to find out more about the Government's consultation or feedback your comments direct to the Government, visit the 'Care and Support' website (see below).

Tell us what you think

If you want to give us your thoughts and ideas about the future of care and support services, please tell us what you think (see below). We may send your views to the Government but we will not use your name or contact details.

Social Care Commissioning Strategy

The Strategy covers all our services and sets out what we aim to achieve from 2008 to 2013 to make sure we support vulnerable people to lead full, independent and active lives

The Strategy was agreed by the Council's Executive Committee at its meeting on 8 April 2008 and we would very much like local people and organisations to have their say about it.

You can find out more about our Strategy by visiting the Social Care Commissioning Strategy page.

Independence and Wellbeing Plan

We want to make sure that everyone living in the Royal Borough of Kingston who has a health and social care need gets the help they need.

We in Community Care Services will continue to directly support those people who need the most help to stay independent, safe and well.

To make sure that people with lower level support needs get the information, advice and support they need to stay independent, safe and well, we have been working with our voluntary sector colleagues to produce an 'Independence and Wellbeing Plan'.

This Plan was approved by the Executive Committe at its 22 July meeting and will now be 'scrutinized' by the Council's Scrutiny Panel at its meeting on 9 September. The Scrutiny Panel is an Opposition-led body responsible for holding the Executive to account. The role of the Panel is to provide an appropriate level of challenge to the Executive in order to create better decisions and policies for the residents of Kingston.

Find out more about our Plan by visiting the Independence and Wellbeing Plan page.

Daily Living and Telecare Shop

We have recently opened a Telecare Shop as part of our Daily Living Equipment Shop where you can try out and buy equipment such as Fall Detectors, Alert Buttons and other gadgets to help you keep safe. The Shop is open on Tuesdays between 10am and 12 noon. Call 020 8399 0032 to find out more information.

Service Information Documents

Get help accessing files or request files in alternative formats

Information about who we are and what we do in Community languages: