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Types of social care

The kind of support you might get covers advice and information. It also includes special equipment or changes to your home that make life easier. Social care can also be support for your family carer, such as arranging breaks for them. And, if a time comes when you need it, social care can arrange for a move into a care home.

The type of support your council or Trust gives you depends on what your social care assessment said you need. You have some choice and control over the sort of support you decide to have. What you agree to will then be written down in your care and support plan.

Find out more

Information and advice

Your council or Trust must help you get free information and advice that’s tailored to your needs. You have a right to this no matter what your assessment decided, or even if you never had one.

This information and advice might be on their website, or by phone from their contact centre or social care helpline. It could be leaflets, or information in an advice centre, library or independent living centre.

Equipment and changes to your home (adaptations)

Your council or Trust can pay for equipment and some changes (adaptations) to your home that make life safer and easier. Or you can pay for these using the budget in your care and support plan. You can also apply for grants to help pay for more expensive changes to your home. 

Equipment could include things like:   

  • special knives and forks
  • gadgets to open tins, bottles and jars
  • bath seats.

Adaptations could include:

  • grab rails
  • ramps
  • having lifts installed
  • making doors wider for a wheelchair
  • more extensive changes to your home 

Read more about how these changes can be paid for

Home care for MS (including personal assistants)

Home care is when you get help at home from a paid carer. You or your council or Trust arrange for this carer to come to your home. They help you stay independent. Part of home care can be a ‘personal assistant’.

What is a personal assistant?

You can hire a personal assistant (PA) to give you home care. They can be with you for a few hours a week, or several hours each day (or night). They can help with things like:  

  • personal care. This covers things like getting in or out of bed, washing, showering, dressing, eating or using the toilet
  • shopping
  • making meals
  • taking medication (a PA can be trained to do some things a nurse does)
  • tidying up and cleaning
  • driving you or helping you get about, for example to appointments, work or education
  • supporting you while your family carer has a break

You can hire more than one personal assistant. You decide the days and hours they work and what you want them to do. You pay for them using the budget in your care and support plan.

You can hire a personal assistant directly. Or you can get someone to give you home care through a care agency or your council or Trust.

Personal assistants are used to doing things like cleaning and shopping, but care workers from the council or care agencies might not do things like that. So check first what they will and won’t do. If you hire a PA, make it clear from the start to them (or to the council or care agency that sends them) exactly what support you need and what you expect them to do.

Things you must do if you hire a PA

  • sort out their pay, taxes, contract and pension
  • pay for them to have a criminal record check. This is a DBS check in England and Wales, a Disclosure Scotland check in Scotland and Access NI in Northern Ireland.
  • arrange and pay for any training and supervision they need
  • pay for things they need to do their job, like aprons and gloves

Read more about employing a personal assistant in a guide from the organisation Skills for Care.

Short breaks and respite care

Respite care is a short break for you and the person who looks after you (like your partner, a friend or family member). Respite gives carers like these some time to themselves.

The break could be on a regular basis, less often than that, or only when you need it. Your council or Trust might arrange a break for a morning or afternoon each week, or longer.

Options for respite include:

  • you and your carer or family get help to go on holiday (together or separately)
  • your carer goes on holiday while you get support at home until they come back
  • you stay in a care home until your carer gets back
  • your carer has a day off, while you go to a day care centre that day

If you’re a carer, read more on our carers assessment page about how social care can support you.

Read more about the different types of breaks for carers and respite care.

Day services

Many councils or Trusts offer day services. At a day centre you can learn skills (like how to deal with a disability better). There may be services like chiropody (foot care), gentle exercise classes, or someone to cut hair. Or you can just socialise with people, and take part in activities, events or day trips. While you’re at the day centre, your family carer gets a break.

If your care and support plan mentions day services, your council or Trust can arrange for you to a visit a day centre to see if you'd like this. You can use money from your personal budget to pay for it.

Residential care

When you need lots of support, your council or Trust might suggest you move out of your home and live permanently in a residential care home. These homes might have 24 hour care, or be specially adapted to meet your needs.

You should never feel you’re being forced into a care home. So long as it's practical, you have the right to ask that your needs are met in your own home if you want that. But if you do decide on residential care, you should get a choice of homes.

If you want your council or Trust to pay towards your care home, they'll look at your money situation. This usually includes the value of your home if you own it.

Find out more about paying for residential care