Please cascade this through your organisation and teams.
The Goverment's Care Act comes into force from April 2015.
The Government pledges that care and support in England is changing for the better. And if you receive or give care and
support, you will be able to benefit from the changes being
introduced by the new Care Act, designed to put your wellbeing first.
The Care Act will help to make care and support more consistent across
the country and puts the wellbeing of individuals at the heart of health and social
care services.
The Government is committed to delivering a national public awareness campaign ‘to create
a positive backdrop of awareness amongst care users and carers so that local
authority and trusted partner communications land with more impact.’ The
campaign, led by the Department of Health and Public Health England, has been divided into two phases:
Pre April 2015:
Pre April 2016:
We are looking at our current policies and will be making some positive changes to the way we work in the future based on:
- where we are already fulfilling Care Act duties
- what the gaps are that we will need to fill
- where the local impact is likely to be the greatest
- identifying areas of work that are a priority
- what Devon County Council can afford to deliver and how
You can read more about the key changes below.
The national care and support public information campaign runs
between January–March 2015 to deliver Care Act messages direct to the end user and
carer audiences, using the landscape design look and feel, as above.
The nationally-driven communications activity will be rolling out as follows:
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Online advertising – digital and social media, and through major search engine platforms (e.g. Google, Bing)
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Radio advertising (Heart and Smooth
radio) – two
30 seconds adverts: care users and informal carers from 2 February until 15
March 2015
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National media partnerships – newspapers and magazines via Daily/Sunday
Mirror, Best magazine, Real People magazine in publications of 9 Feb-16 March –
advertorials, pull-outs in
Sunday supplements
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Door Drops: Leaflets letterbox door drops to 64,000 + households in the Devon County Council (DCC) area 16-28 February 2015 by Royal Mail
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GP waiting rooms leaflets in 20% of DCC areas supplied nationally, DCC will supply the remaining 80% of GP sites and also libraries from January-16 March 2015
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Leaflets to 50 Libraries – DCC will supply leaflets
Please note that activity is unable to continue past March 2015 due to the pre-election period.
Locally we will use a toolkit to adapt national messages. Read our local communications recommendations.
What to look out for
All national activity will carry the marque (see right), and it has been made available to use by all local authorities and wider partners such as charities and private providers.
Examples of public information:
Additional information not to be given directly to the public:
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These key national messages are agreed by the Government and describe key aspects of the April 2015 reforms brought in by the Care Act, using clear and concise language tested with the public:
‘Caring’ for someone covers lots of different things, like helping with their washing, dressing or eating, taking them to regular appointments or keeping them company when they feel lonely or anxious. From April 2015, changes to the way care and support is provided in England mean carers may be able to get more help so that they can carry on caring.
This means that Devon County Council will have to look very differently at how we can
best support carers in Devon.
Financial planning
Devon County Council is improving our financial advice and information. We
will seek to ensure the right information is available, at the right time
and for the right people.
Coming soon... care accounts, Deferred Payment Agreements, and the 'Care cap'. Find out more.
Devon County Council is co-designing and co-producing an
effective public information and advice network with partners and stakeholders.
Survey work is being undertaken to provide a local picture of how many
service users and carers have web access and confidence to use online
information.
Devon County Council's advocacy contract with Devon Advocacy Consortium (DAC) is being
updated to ensure people who are referred to DAC will have their eligibility to
receive advocacy tested against criteria set out in the Care Act. The Care Act
makes it clearer that the purpose of local authority advocacy is to
ensure that people are assisted
to understand the decisions of practitioners, and the processes that are
available to them for challenging these decisions.
Please refer to our
stakeholder website, the Care Act in Devon, which is being kept
up-to-date as our plans develop.
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