Adult social care information and advice are essential and getting them right means that people are more likely to be able to make informed choices and access the right support at the right time and place. This can make a big difference for someone and ultimately can improve their health and wellbeing. It also helps councils to manage and prioritise their assessment processes and resources.
We are developing further resources to support councils with their information and advice responsibilities. For further information get in touch at [email protected]
Top tips for consideration for information and advice services
- Make sure all information is available in plain English and easy to understand. Consider including wider services and opportunities in the community not just council services within the information and advice offer.
- Make information and advice accessible through a range of formats and channels. Consider your provision for people with a disability or sensory impairment, including people with learning disabilities and autistic people. Consider if the information is available in the right format such as audio, Braille, or a foreign language. Think about what channel might best support people, whether its digital, telephony services, face-to-face or a combination.
- Make digital channels accessible to different groups of people. Consider what people might need to access them including equipment needed or whether support is needed. Understand the digital literacy of people accessing information and advice. Online works well for some but it may not work for everyone.
- Ensure you have a person-oriented approach, and it is easy for people to use and engage with information and advice. Continually check in with people using the service to make sure the offer is meeting what they need. Consider maintaining an open conversation with people who use your information and advice service and aim for continuous improvement, where you always seek to improve.
- Avoid making assumptions about what people need and understand and learn about all the different people who access the information and advice. Consider creating ‘personas’ based on local research and understanding of your population. Personas are one way to represent the different types of people using a service.
- People may be accessing information and advice in a crisis so provide them with the information and what they need to know as easily and quickly as possible. Consider how efficient the journey is for different people and test it out.
- Information and advice are often provided by word of mouth from a range of trusted sources (for example, by a GP or nurses). Consider how many sources of information you have and ensure information is timely, consistent, reliable and useable by everyone providing information and advice. This can be achieved by everyone using information from the same source.
- Encourage a strengths-based approach which builds on what people can do themselves. Consider if there is clear signposting for people to help themselves online before making formal contact with adult social care services.
- Personalised and community-based approaches have an important role in prevention and supporting people. Consider using community budgets and capacity as a source of advice for people in the first instance rather than formal adult social care services.
- Co-produce your information and advice with people drawing upon care and support and their advocates, carers and families. Consider Think Local, Act Personal (TLAP)’s ‘I’ and ‘We’ statements to support your approach.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) can aid information provision via virtual assistants or chatbots which can help summarise and tailor information according to need. Consider how AI could be used to strengthen your information and advice offer and add in capacity.