Care Act 2014: consultation on draft regulations and guidance

On 6 June 2014, the Department of Health (DH) published a consultation on draft regulations and guidance to implement the measures on care and support under Part 1 of the Care Act 2014 (CA 2014), which will come into effect in April 2015.

CA 2014 reforms the law relating to care and support for adults and the law relating to support for carers, and contains powers allowing the government to make secondary regulations to implement those reforms. The guidance describes how the care and support system should operate in 2015-16. Its purpose is to provide local authorities with the information they need to meet their legal obligations under CA 2014 and the regulations. The guidance will also be used by the courts in deciding whether a local authority has acted within the law and by other groups including individuals and their families using care and support.

Among the measures addressed by the draft regulations and guidance are those on charging for care, assessing an individual's financial circumstances and working out an individual's personal budget so that the individual can choose how he would like his care and support needs to be met.

DH will publish a separate consultation later this year on regulations and updated guidance relating to the implementation of additional reforms coming into effect in April 2016 (such as the cap on care costs, see Legal update, Care Bill 2013-14 under consideration in the House of Lords: Funding social care: Cap on care cost contributions and annual adjustment).

The consultation closes on 15 August 2014.

For more information on the provisions in CA 2014 of interest to private client practitioners, see Private client legislation tracker: Care Act 2014.