Adult social care early invention and prevention

The work of Adult Social Care is primarily focussed meeting its related statutory requirements and on delivering South Tyneside Council's Healthier People priority, which states:

"We want people in South Tyneside to live healthier longer lives. We will encourage people to take positive decisions that will improve their health and wellbeing. We will focus on early intervention and prevention, and improve access to personalised services and support".

The Care Act 2014 requires local authorities to ensure resources are available to Prevent, Reduce and Delay the development of needs for care and support. The following document is focused on understanding where resources are best placed to prevent and reduce the number of people in South Tyneside from needing formal social care services.

Preventing social care need can be thought of as Primary Prevention: For individuals who have no current particular health or care and support needs

Reducing social care need can be thought of as Secondary Prevention: More targeted interventions aimed at individuals who have an increased risk of developing needs.

This assessment will not focus on delaying needs or managing social care demand, as this should form its own needs assessment.

Methodology

To systematically discover the prevention activities and groups of people amenable for prevention related to social care, we first listed the population groups that are more likely to go on to receive social care. The Level of Need section covers this in more detail. From here, we conducted evidence searches for specific references to interventions that would prevent or delay the need for social care within the target population group (Evidence for Interventions section). We then summarised the findings in the Unmet Needs section.