The following Seven Core Principles to Support Self Care, as defined by the Department of Health and Social Care, has the objective of helping health and social care staff support people who wish to remain independent.
The Core Principles, developed by Skills for Care and Skills for Health, are as follows:

This organisation seeks to ensure that these principles are appropriately reflected in its policies and practice in promoting autonomy and independence.
This document outlines the policy of this organisation in relation to promoting residents’ autonomy and independence.
Definitions:
Autonomy is the right or condition of self government.
Independence is self determination, self reliance, and self support.

This organisation seeks positively to promote the autonomy and independence of our service users. We recognise that our service users’ capacity for independent action has often been undermined by illness, disability, and failing mental capacity and that insensitive action by workers can reinforce dependence. We, therefore, strive to help service users make their own decisions and to support them in controlling their own lives. We aim always to balance the protection of service users from unnecessary risks with the promotion of independence and choice.

We recognise that the tone of the relationship between this organisation and a service user is often set by the initial contact and that the care needs assessment or pre-admission assessment, which must be undertaken before we start to provide a service, can in itself be a process that endangers a potential service user’s sense of being in control. We do everything we can to empower our service users from the very outset of our dealing with them.

Making service users aware of what is going on in their care is an important contributor to them feeling independent. We, therefore, provide good, thorough, and up-to-date information about our service and other facilities, both at the beginning and throughout our contact with a service user. We would provide information in formats and languages that make it accessible to the individuals to whom it is addressed.

Full and comprehensive care needs assessment or pre-admission form should be completed with the service user and involving their relatives or representatives when requested. Staff need to ensure that consent is able to be given and, where there are capacity concerns, advice should be sought. During a national emergency, such provisions of duty have been amended to ensure that powers can be exercised.

We recognise that choice is important for service users, and we attempt to advance these principles throughout our operations. We ensure that every service user who receives our service has positively opted to use our organisation. We provide service users with the opportunity to exercise choice about the workers with whom they interact and will change the worker when the service user requests it. We are particularly sensitive to matching workers and service users where issues of gender, culture, or ethnicity play a role.

The workers providing care and support on a day-to-day basis aim to carry out their tasks in co-operation with service users in ways that do not deny the possibility for the service user to exercise their discretion, initiative, and control. We realise that this principle is particularly difficult to uphold where service users have disabilities or lack of capacity is an issue.
We value risks as an essential part of a fulfilling lifestyle. Workers support service users in taking reasonable risks, without obviously endangering their health or safety, and subject to a thorough risk assessment recorded in the care plan.
We know how disempowering it can be for the service user not to understand fully what is going on. Wherever possible, workers communicate with service users in their first or preferred language.

Where requested, we provide support to service users in controlling their financial affairs, always respecting the privacy and confidentiality of documents to which we have access.

We provide facilities for service users to see their personal files following data protection legislation and inform them of the access to files that may be required by inspectors.

Although we try to respect the lifestyle choices of service users, in exceptional circumstances we may be obliged to intervene to prevent a service user from harming themselves or becoming a danger to someone else. On these rare occasions, our workers will act with respect for human rights, within our legal responsibilities and this organisation’s policy on restraint, and in the best interests of the service user and others closely involved.

We continue to respect the rights of service users who have been assessed as lacking the capacity to make certain decisions or who are thought to lack that capacity by considering their best interests at all times.
We do this by ensuring that we implement fully the Mental Capacity Act 2005 Code of Practice concerning maintaining service user’s autonomy and independence. This entails involving them as fully as possible in every decision concerning their care and the services this organisation provides.

We try to relate to service users’ relatives and carers where this is appropriate, treating them as partners in providing care. To ensure that such relationships do not undermine the autonomy of the service user, however, we insist on having the service user’s permission before dealing with anyone on their behalf or releasing confidential information to others.

We provide information when requested about the availability of independent advocates and self-advocacy schemes and are quite willing, if required, to communicate with service users’ advocates.

Accessible Information and Communication
Advocacy
Assessment of Need and Eligibility
Care and Support Planning
Dignity and Respect
Mental Capacity Act 2005
Relatives Friends and Carers

Common Core Principles to support self care:
https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/

Introduction to the seven common core principles to support dignity in adult social care:
https://ccpdignity.co.uk/

SCIE: self-directed support and personal budgets
https://www.scie.org.uk/

All staff, during induction, are made aware of the organisation’s policies and procedures, all of which are used for training updates. All policies and procedures are reviewed and amended where necessary, and staff are made aware of any changes. Observations are undertaken to check skills and competencies. Various methods of training are used, including one to one, online, workbook, group meetings, and individual supervisions. External courses are sourced as required.

Date Reviewed: May 2021
Person responsible for updating this policy: Carly Fortune
Next Review Date: May 2022