What help am I entitled to?

You may qualify for additional benefits, whether or not you are entitled to help from Hampshire County Council Adult Services Department.

In 2002, the Department of Health issued guidance called ‘Fair Access to Care’. This guidance helps Local Authorities, like Hampshire County Council, decide who their ‘most needy’ members of the community are by setting out ‘Eligibility Criteria’.

Your assessment

To assess your needs and decide whether we can help you, read about the eligibility assessment process that will take place.

You can also complete our online self assessment questionnaire to help you understand your needs and outcome options.

The Eligibility Criteria

The 'Eligibility Criteria' provides a scale by which the Adult Services Department can assess an individual's care requirements and these are either Low, Moderate, Substantial or Critical. In Hampshire, we can only offer community care support to meet needs we decide are 'critical' or 'substantial'.

However everyone who comes to Adult Services for support will get advice and information on where to get help as well as assistance in making their own care arrangements if necessary.

Are you eligible for help?

If any of your needs are identified as being 'critical' or 'substantial' you will qualify for help from Adult Services. We cannot provide help for needs which are not 'critical' or 'substantial' but will give you advice and information about ways you can manage your needs or get help for them elsewhere.

How does the Council decide whether any of my needs are 'critical' or 'substantial'?

The difference between 'critical' or 'substantial' is in most cases decided by the seriousness of the difficulty. An outline summary of the definitions of these terms are given on the Are any of my needs critical or substantial? web pages.

Am I entitled to any benefits or allowances?

It is important that everyone who is entitled to benefits or help receives all that they are entitled to. There are a range of benefits that you may be eligible to receive and more information on these can be found on the financial help pages.

Directgov provides a free web-based benefits advisor calculator to help you find out which benefits and tax credits you, your family (or anyone you act on behalf of) may be entitled to, and eligibility to the State Pension.