Reviewing the needs assessment

Coronavirus and needs assessments

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, temporary legislation was introduced on which enables local authorities to prioritise their services to ensure the most urgent and serious care needs are met first. This may mean that needs assessments could be temporarily delayed and some other council services may be reduced or suspended. However, local authorities are still expected to respond as soon as possible to requests for care and support.

Contact your local authority to find out how this will affect you.

Timing of the review

Local authorities should review care and support plans no later than every 12 months and a basic review should happen six to eight weeks after a new or revised care plan. You can ask for an earlier review if your situation changes before that time. Following a review, your care plan might be updated to reflect any changing needs.

How the review happens

How the review is carried out varies, and will depend on how significant any changes are considered to be.

It may be done automatically and not in much detail – for example, a person might be interviewed briefly to assess their satisfaction with the service; or
There is a complete re-run of the assessment. Only this can accurately identify whether needs have changed and whether the current care plan is still the right one.

If you think that your care needs have changed substantially since the last review (for example, care at home is no longer working well for you and you think a care home would be a more appropriate place to live), you should ask the local authority to carry out a full re-assessment. Make it clear that this is what you want and give the reasons. If the need for a review is urgent, also make that clear.