Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council

Stockport stretches from the borders of the Peak District National Park to cosmopolitan Manchester, and is easily accessible by air, road. With a population of just under 300,000 Stockport is a great place to live, work and visit.

Stockport Council is working to improve choice and information about social care services for local residents - older people, adults with learning and physical disabilities and people with sight or hearing loss or mental health issues.

We aim to help people aged 18 years or over to continue to live as independently as possible within the community. We believe this is best achieved by supporting people with care needs to work with everyone involved, including carers, social workers and other agencies, to identify and agree their needs and aspirations, and then choose and obtain services to help achieve these.

We carry out an assessment of needs and, if eligible, people are assigned a personal budget to spend on meeting their needs. This can be spent on support services such as home care, day care, specialist equipment and adaptations to property, respite care or breaks for carers, as well as less traditional support options, such as employing a personal assistant. We also support people to access residential and nursing care, where this offers the most appropriate type of support to meet their needs. If the assessed needs do not fit our eligibility criteria, people are supported to access a range of lower level preventative support options, designed to increase their independence and delay their need for more intensive social care support.

Whilst the Council provides some social care services, the majority are commissioned through the independent, community and voluntary sector. We therefore have an important role to play in ensuring that we have a range of quality providers, offering services that meet the needs of the local population. Set out below are some basic facts and figures about adult social care activity in 2010-11:

Adults and older people referred to Adult Social Care - 14,230 people
Adults and older people maintained with community services in their own - 6,821
Adults and older people maintained in residential and hursing homes - 1,442 people
Carers of adults and older people supported with services - 1,316 people.