NICE Consultation on Advocacy for Adults with Health and Social Care Needs

Leaders from advocacy providers across the country have worked collaboratively again. This time they have provided a sector-wide response to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence on their recent consultation for advocacy services for adults with health and social care needs.  Connected Voice Advocacy was a collaborator and the key messages from the sector were:

• The importance of inclusion of people’s experience of the breath of advocacy roles including statutory, complaints and community based advocacy.
• The need for clarity over the age range of people supported or excluded under the definition of adult as this varies within legislation for advocacy
• The need to include advocacy for people who may want to challenge eligibility for services rather than just focus on those in receipt of services
• Working within, and aligning to, existing quality frameworks in the sector
• Meaningful and effective engagement of service users in planning and commissioning services
• Research and impact assessment of any move towards ‘digital first’ or ‘digital only’ services to avoid digital exclusion and dilute the service provided
• Consideration of decisions around geography of placements and access to advocacy, as well as standardised approaches to support people who are not able to instruct an advocate or have additional communication needs
• A widening of the definition of people transitioning from children’s to adult’s services

We look forward to the findings from the consultation and how this will impact on the advocacy sector.