The Light Touch Review Conversation

The primary focus of a 'light touch' review is to gather enough information to be satisfied that the Care and Support Plan is:

1. working effectively as intended; and
2. there are no issues or adjustments needed to the Care and Support Plan.

During a light touch review, there is only a requirement to 'touch' upon needs, wellbeing and outcomes.

A light touch review is normally appropriate and proportionate whenever:

1. there are no known changes in need or circumstances; and
2. there are no changes required to a Care and Support Plan (or minimal changes to how existing care and support is provided only); and
3. there are no changes required to the personal budget.

A light touch review should be specifically considered in the following circumstances:

1. at the 6-8 week review; and
2. when there is/has been ongoing monitoring of the person's needs or circumstance.

If a light touch conversation is not appropriate, see: The Full Review Conversation.

If you are not clear whether a light touch review is appropriate, you should seek advice from your line manager.

Where the person is known to have a carer, there is a requirement under the Care Act for the carer to be involved in the review process.

The purpose of doing so is to:

1. gather further information about the Care and Support Plan regarding the way it is meeting the needs of the person;
2. understand any risk to the carer's role in the plan;
3. identify any needs of the carer and fulfil the duty to meet them.

When a person has not consented to the carer being a part of the review, you should:

1. advise the person that you have a duty to involve the carer;
2. explain the benefits of the carer being involved; and
3. agree the most appropriate way to involve the carer (for example, a separate meeting with the carer).

If the person has requested that particular information not relating to their needs is withheld from the carer, and they have capacity to do so, normal confidentiality rules apply unless doing so would put the person (or another vulnerable adult or child) at risk of abuse or neglect.

The Care Act is clear that a whole family approach to review should be taken wherever possible. The whole family approach in review is the same as the whole family approach in assessment.

See: A Whole Family Approach, which includes guidance on who should be involved, consent and the responsibilities you have to adult and child family members.

A Care and Support Plan that is working well is more likely to have a positive effect on the person's wellbeing than a plan that is not working well. The Local Authority has a duty to promote individual wellbeing, so must ensure that everything is in place in the plan and working as intended.

Wherever possible, every conversation with a person should be from a strengths perspective. This means that before you talk about service solutions to anything that is not working, you must support the person to explore whether there is:

1. anything within their own power that they can do to help themselves; or
2. anything within the power of their family, friends or community that they can use to help themselves.

SCIE have produced clear and practical guidance around how to use a strengths based approach in practice. See: Care Act guidance on strengths-based approaches – SCIE. Note: SCIE requires a login to access resources, but any social care practitioner can create one quickly and easily.

The conversation about what is working and not working must broadly establish whether:

1. all of the services and support in the plan are in place as intended;
2. all of the services and support in the plan are meeting the person's needs;
3. the plan is supporting the person to achieve their outcomes;
4. the method of managing the personal budget is still the most effective way of meeting needs and supporting the person to achieve outcomes;
5. anything has changed about the person's circumstances that may indicate a change is needed to the Care and Support Plan, including any changes to the informal support that is in place;
6. there any risks to the plan's sustainability;
7. the plan is managing any identified risk to the person (including risk associated with their needs and risk relating to abuse and neglect);
8. everybody involved in the plan is satisfied with it.

A light touch review should only be carried out when it is known or thought that:

1. everything in the Care and Support Plan is in place as intended;
2. the Care and Support Plan is meeting eligible needs;
3. the Care and Support Plan is meeting outcomes; and
4. the method of managing the personal budget is working.

As such, conversations about what is working or not working during a light touch review should reflect the fact that the plan is likely to be working well.

Simple questions should be used to confirm that the plan is working, such as:

1. Is everything in the Care and Support Plan in place as intended?
2. Are all the support and services you receive working well for you?
3. Does anything need to change about your plan or the way you are supported?
4. Does anything need to change about the way you manage the personal budget?

You should refer to the Care and Support Plan to confirm what support and services should be in place, and how the personal budget is being managed.

You should refer to the full review procedures if the response identifies that:

1. support and services in the Care and Support Plan are not in place as intended; or
2. support and services being provided are not working as intended; or
3. the person has new outcomes they wish to work towards which require formal support or services.

Outcomes can change when a person's life priorities change. This can happen unexpectedly, and unmet outcomes can have a dramatic impact on a person's individual wellbeing. The Local Authority has a duty to promote wellbeing and to do this it must:

1. understand what is important to a person to achieve, change or maintain in their life at any given point in time; and;
2. take steps to support the person to achieve outcomes.

The conversation about outcomes must broadly establish whether:

1. the outcomes in the Care and Support Plan have been achieved or not;
2. the person has any new outcomes they want to meet;
3. how the person might meet these new outcomes through their own strengths and resources; and
4. any improvements are required to the plan to achieve better outcomes.

A light touch review should only be carried out when it is known or thought that there has been no change to a person's outcomes.

As such, conversations about outcomes during a light touch review should reflect the fact that outcomes are unlikely to have changed.

Simple questions should be used to confirm that outcomes are being met by the Care and Support Plan, such as:

1. How have you been able to work towards the outcomes in your plan?
2. Have there been any changes to the things that are important to you to achieve, change or maintain?
3. What might you do to achieve the outcomes you wish to achieve?
4. Do you think there needs to be any changes to the plan to work towards your outcomes?

You should refer to the Care and Support Plan to confirm what the person's outcomes were.

The conversation about outcomes at light touch review may identify:

1. additional information and advice that you can provide to support the person to take steps to meet the outcomes in their plan. Where this is the case, you must provide such information and advice; or
2. small changes only to how the support in the Care and Support Plan needs to be provided to achieve outcomes (for example, a change to the timing of the support).

You should refer to the full review procedures if the response identifies that:

1. the plan is not supporting the person to meet outcomes as intended; or
2. the person's outcomes have changed; and
3. they are likely to need significant changes to the Care and Support Plan to achieve outcomes.

The conversation about needs must establish whether the person's needs have changed since the time that they were assessed, and the Care and Support Plan was agreed.

A light touch review should only be carried out when the person is thought or known to have no changes in their needs.

As such, conversations about need during a light touch review should reflect the fact that needs are unlikely to have changed.

A simple question, such as 'Has there been any change to your needs?' can be sufficient during a light touch review.

You should refer to the assessment report to confirm what the assessed needs were.

Once you have established that there has been no change in need, there is no requirement to discuss needs further during the review.

If there has been a change in need, you should explore:

1. broadly, what the changes in need are;
2. what the impact of the changes are on the person's wellbeing;
3. what the impact of the changes are on any carer and formal services; and
4. the impact of the changes on risk (to the person and the plan).

If there has been a change in need, the outcome of the review must be to carry out a proportionate reassessment of need.

The reassessment must make effective use of the information gathered during the review to avoid duplication.

If, as part of a light touch review process, there is disagreement about whether a person's needs have changed, it is your responsibility to make the final decision about whether needs have changed. To do this, you should:

1. consider all of the available evidence;
2. give regard to the views of the person; and
3. consider the different views expressed by others.

You must make sure that the evidence upon which you base your decision is robust and you must be open about the evidence that you have used.

You will need to consider any requirement for urgent or interim support to ensure that the person's eligible needs are met whilst steps are being taken to:

1. resolve the issues with the Care and Support Plan;
2. agree revisions to the Care and Support Plan; or
3. carry out any other action (for example, safeguarding or a reassessment of needs).

If there is an urgent need to be met, see: Urgent or Interim Support.

If a person has experienced a change in need but this is only likely to be short term, a reassessment of need is not required, as long as:

1. the needs can be met and are being met by the existing Care and Support Plan; and
2. it is reasonable to believe that the needs are short term only.

You will need to agree appropriate arrangements to monitor the person's needs and circumstances. This could be through another light touch review in a shorter time frame. You will also need to ensure that the person (or their representative if the person lacks capacity) knows what action to take should the short term needs become more long term, or the Care and Support Plan no longer meets the needs.

Risk is broadly defined as 'the probability that an event will occur with beneficial or harmful consequences'.

The aim of any conversation about risk is to maximise the benefits and reduce the likelihood of harm.

It is important to talk about risk during a light touch review for the purpose of establishing that:

1. risks continue to be well managed by the Care and Support Plan;
2. there have been no changes to risk;
3. there is no risk to the person from abuse or neglect; and
4. there is no risk to the Care and Support Plan's stability or sustainability.

A light touch review should only be carried out when it is known or thought that:

1. risks to the person are unchanged and well managed; and
2. any risks to the Care and Support Plan are mitigated through the contingency plan in place.

As such, conversations about risk during a light touch review should reflect the fact that risks are likely to be well managed.

Simple questions should be used, such as:

1. Are the things in the Care and Support Plan keeping you safe?
2. Is there a chance that your plan could stop working well?

You should refer to the Care and Support Plan to confirm the current contingency plan and risks being managed.

The conversation about risk at light touch review may identify:

1. additional information and advice that you can provide to support the person to manage risk. Where this is the case, you must provide such information and advice; or
2. small changes to the Care and Support Plan contingency or the way in which care and support services manage risk.

You should refer to the full review procedures if the response identifies that:

1. the plan is not supporting the person to stay safe as intended; or
2. the contingency measures in the plan are not managing risk to the plan's sustainability; and
3. there are likely to be significant changes required to the Care and Support Plan.

If, as part of any conversation you have with a person or their family, you become concerned that a vulnerable adult or a child is experiencing, or is at risk of, abuse or neglect, you must respond appropriately.

See Safeguarding Adults, which also includes information about how to raise a concern about a person under the age of 18.

If you are concerned that an adult or child is in imminent danger from abuse or neglect, or that a criminal act has taken place, you should contact the police by dialling 999.

Where the safeguarding is in respect of the person whose Care and Support Plan is being reviewed, a decision will need to be made about the need to pause the review process to allow a safeguarding enquiry to take place.

There are three possible options:

1. the review process continues alongside any safeguarding process;
2. the review is paused with no ongoing intervention by the person carrying out the review whilst a safeguarding process takes place; or
3. the review is paused, but urgent interim support is arranged to ensure needs are met whilst a safeguarding process takes place.

Any decision should involve the person carrying out the review, the person who will be carrying out any safeguarding process, the person with care and support needs (or their representative), and any carer.

You must consider any appropriate action required to authorise deprivations of liberty whenever:

1. the person lacks capacity to make decisions about the care and support provided to them; and
2. you feel the level of restriction being imposed on the person is depriving them of their liberty; or
3. you feel the level of restriction required to meet their care and support needs following any reassessment to take place is likely to deprive them of their liberty.

See: Recognising and Responding to Deprivations of Liberty