How to write a care plan for your parent

Whoever is caring for your parent, having this written down means it does not all live in one person's head. There are two versions of a care plan, and it helps to know which one you are dealing with.

Most families end up writing something like the first version even when the council is also involved, because a council plan covers what the council is paying for rather than every detail of your parent's day. If you are still working out how much help your parent needs before you write anything down, working out the visits and hours a week is worth doing first.

None of this means ignoring risk. It means your parent's account of their own needs comes first, with everyone else's knowledge added around it rather than instead of it. The government's care and support statutory guidance sets this out as the expected approach for any plan a council produces, and it is a reasonable standard to hold any plan you write yourselves to as well.

1. 1

   Start by assuming they can decide

   Presumption of capacity

   The law assumes your parent can make this decision unless it has been shown otherwise. A diagnosis such as dementia does not on its own mean they cannot decide; capacity is assessed for each decision separately, and can vary through the day.
2. 2

   Help them decide before deciding for them

   Support first

   Explain the choice at a time of day they manage best, and in a way they can follow, before concluding they cannot make it themselves.
3. 3

   Let them make a decision you would not

   The right to an unwise decision

   Having capacity means being allowed to make a choice that worries you, provided they understand what they are choosing.
4. 4

   If an assessment shows they cannot decide, act in their best interests

   Best interests

   Whoever decides for them, often the person named in a Lasting Power of Attorney for health and welfare, must consult family, carers and anyone who knows their wishes, rather than simply deciding what is convenient.
5. 5

   Choose the option that restricts them least

   Least restrictive option

   Among the choices that meet their needs, pick the one that leaves your parent with the most freedom and control over their own life.

These five principles come from the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and they apply to every decision made on someone's behalf, not only care plans. If your worry is closer to being pushed into a kind of care your parent does not want, this page on being forced into care answers that directly.

The daily routine and personal care details matter more than they might seem to from the outside. Helping your parent bathe and use the toilet goes into the kind of detail worth writing into this part of the plan, and the same is true if incontinence needs managing or if lifting and repositioning are involved: note down what works, what to avoid, and any equipment used, rather than leaving a new carer to work it out on the day.

The Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010 sit behind all of this. Between them, they are why your parent has the right to be consulted about their own life, not only the right to be looked after, and why a plan should never be written or shared without their consent if they have the capacity to give it. A simple template covers all five sections above if you would rather start from something written than a blank page.

If your parent's needs have changed and nobody has arranged an assessment yet, local authority funding explains how to ask the council for one. If you are the one doing most of the caring day to day, you can also ask for a carer's assessment of your own needs at the same time, separate from your parent's.

1. 1

   Raise it with the named contact first

   Step 1

   Every council care and support plan names a contact, often a social worker or care coordinator. Most problems get sorted at this stage.
2. 2

   Use the council's formal complaints procedure

   Step 2

   If raising it directly does not work, ask the council for its adult social care complaints procedure. It has to respond within set timescales.
3. 3

   Go to the ombudsman

   Step 3

   If you are still unhappy once the council's own process has finished, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman can investigate for free.

That path is for a council care and support plan. If the plan is one you wrote yourselves with a carer you found through PrimeCarers and it is not working, for example because the carer is not following what you agreed, the first step is the same: talk to them directly. If that does not fix it, you can look for a different carer rather than stay with one who is not the right match.