Transport for Users of Social Work Services

Transport and accessibility are issues that are regularly highlighted by communities all across Highland. These issues affect people of all walks of life, not just people who have a disability or care need. Ensuring effective transport is the responsibility of the Highland community as a whole and integrated transport project has just begun which is aimed at maximising the effectiveness of transport across the area.

The priority for the Highland Health and Social Care Partnership is to support people to lead healthy and active lives and to ensure that people’s care needs are appropriately addressed. Our focus is to provide a social care service where it is most needed and it is not possible for us to provide routine assistance with transport to everyone who accesses our services.

To ensure that the Service is able to target its resources appropriately and fairly, it has in place a policy and procedure: Assistance with Transport for Users of Community Care Services: Policy, Procedure and Guidance for Community Care Managers and Staff based on the following principles:

• the person’s need for assistance with transport will always be assessed separately from any assessment for a Community Care service;
• assistance with transport will only be given where it is essential in enabling the person to access a Community Care service;
• all assistance with transport will be provided in the most cost-effective way possible;
• where service users are in receipt of state benefits (in money or kind) that are provided for the expressed purpose of aiding mobility, the Service has an expectation that the individual will utilise these to access Community Care services; and
• the Service will be able to demonstrate that any assessment for assistance or actual assistance it provides is done fairly and transparently.