Key responsibilities and leadership

North Tyneside Council Adult Social Care supports residents with care needs, adults at risk of abuse or neglect, and unpaid carers. Our senior management team and their areas of responsibility are below.

Adult Social Care in North Tyneside supports over 3,500 people aged 18 years or over who are have ongoing care and support needs. This includes:

• Older people who are frail or have long-term conditions
• People with physical disabilities
• People with learning disabilities
• People with mental health needs
• People with sensory impairments
• People who are neurodivergent
• People who care for relatives or friends

We also support residents with advice, information, equipment and technology to prevent care needs from developing further, and short-term support for people recovering from a hospital admission or illness.

We support people in a number of ways:

• Advice, information, signposting and referral - to support people to improve their independence and wellbeing.
• Providing equipment, adaptations and technology to support people to stay safe inside and outside of their home.
• Working with people to assess care needs and, where eligible, arrange support to stay well and independent.
• Supporting people to return home following a stay in hospital, helping them to get back on their feet.
• Supporting people who are providing care and support to their relatives or friends. 

We work with our Commissioners and other partners, like the NHS, to plan the support local people may need now and in the future. 

Living Well North Tyneside

Living Well North Tyneside is a one-stop site for information about local health, social care and voluntary and community sector advice, support, activities and events – supporting residents to stay active, supported and connected.

My Care North Tyneside

My Care North Tyneside is Adult Social Care’s website for members of the public and professionals. This site provides:

• Advice and information about social care related issues.
• An online self-assessment and referral portal for adults with support needs and carers
• A portal to report concerns about abuse or neglect
• You can find out more about how Adult Social Care meets its legal duties to prevent, assess and meet eligible support needs in our core set of       information sheets on My Care. 
• Many of these information sheets are available  in Easy Read and BSL video translation.
• You can find out more about how we work with local social care providers to provide good quality services on our Commissioning pages.

You can use My Care to find out about help and support in your area, as well as information about organisations that can help you. 

My Care Portal Accounts - People who receive social care services arranged by the council can view their support plan and message your social care worker securely

• To request Portal Dashboard access click here

If you struggle to use online forms, the Social Care Contact Centre can be contacted by:

• Telephone: (0191) 643 2777
• Email: childrenandadultscontactcentre@northtyneside.gov.uk

The Social Care Contact Centre is open Monday to Thursday 8.30am to 5pm, Friday 8.30am to 4.30pm

• For urgent issues out of hours, contact Care Call on 0330 333 4745
• If a person is at immediate risk of harm, contact the emergency services first.

Our strategy for 2025-2026 was produced with the benefit of the views and ideas of 300 North Tyneside residents, and professionals working in social care and partner organisations. It sets out our strengths, challenges, and our plans to develop our services, focused around three key aims:

Empowering people

We believe everyone deserves a fulfilling life. We want everyone in North Tyneside to feel connected to others, with a sense of purpose, and opportunities to do things they enjoy. By facilitating these, we will support our residents to reach their full potential, and prevent needs from developing further.

Effective and efficient services

We believe that people with care and support needs and carers should have timely support, delivered by skilled workers who are passionate about what they do. Support must be tailored to each person’s needs and wishes, allowing them to live the life they want. By investing in our workforce, using technology, and streamlining processes, we will deliver excellent support which is fit for the future.

Support and safeguarding

By developing care to meet our population’s changing needs, and improving quality, we will make North Tyneside an even better place to live for people with support needs. We will combat abuse and neglect, so everyone in North Tyneside can live without fear or harm. We will ensure the rights of our most vulnerable residents are promoted, with timely action to make sure that their care is proportionate, safe and effective.

At the heart of our strategy are three central priorities, vital to achieving our ambitions for North Tyneside:

• Co-production: Including people with support needs and carers in the development of services.
• Partnerships: Working with other public services and community groups.
• Workforce: Promoting social care as a career of choice, and retaining and developing our skilled, values-led practitioners.

You can read the strategy in PDF format here, or in Word document format here.

We will produce a summary, Easy Read and BSL video translation of the strategy and publish them here when complete.

Co-production

Co-production means people with support needs and carers developing services alongside professionals. Co-production respects the expertise of people with lived experience of our services, sharing decision-making with the people we support.

 You can learn more about our approach to co-production in ‘Stronger Together: Developing Co-Production in Adult Social Care’.

We are always looking to involve more people with support needs and carers in developing our services. If you are interested, please get in touch:

Email: ASCCommissioning@northtyneside.gov.uk
Telephone: 0191 643 5935

Prevention is about helping people stay healthy, active, connected to others, and as independent as possible, for as long as possible.

Our Prevention Strategy sets out North Tyneside Adult Social Care’s approach to preventing, reducing and delaying needs for care and support. You can read this here.

Joint strategic commitments

Adult Social Care are party to a number of joint strategies, which support the aims of our overall joint health and wellbeing strategy ‘Equally Well 2021-2025’. These include:

• Ageing Well 2020-2025
• Digitally Well 2023-2028
• Autism Strategy 2021-2026
• North Tyneside’s Commitment to Carers 2024-2029

If someone has involvement from an Adult Social Care worker for an assessment of their needs, they will use our Ways to Wellbeing practice model. This is the way Adult Social Care puts its duties to assess needs and plan support into practice.

Built on strengths and asset-based approaches, we start with finding out about people’s history, identity, networks, skills and resources. We then look at any challenges the person faces, and work together to overcome them.

More information about Ways to Wellbeing is available in this information sheet, and a Guide for Professionals.  

The Care Act 2014 is the primary piece of legislation which outlines local authority duties to adults with care and support needs and carers. The key responsibilities provided by the Care Act are to:

• Promote the wellbeing of adults in the area
• Prevent, reduce and delay needs for care and support
• Provide relevant, tailored information and advice to support people’s wellbeing
• Work together with other agencies to promote people’s wellbeing
• Assess adults’ care and support needs, and the support needs of carers, where there is an appearance of need
• Plan support for adults with care and support needs and their carers, where they meet the eligibility criteria.
• Make enquiries where an adult with care and support needs may be experiencing, or at risk of, abuse and neglect.
• Work together with partners to stop and prevent abuse.
• Shape the local market for care and support: ensuring there are the right services, of good quality, with sufficient capacity to meet people’s needs.

The full Care Act can be found on the UK Parliament website.The Care and Support Statutory Guidance, produced by the Department of Health and Social Care, set out in detail how local authorities should put the Care Act 2014 into practice. This is available here.

The Better Care Fund is a pooled budget arrangement between North Tyneside Council and the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board, which supports integration between health and social care. The Better Care Fund aims to:

• Enable people to stay well, safe and independent at home for longer, and
• Provide the right care, in the right place, at the right time.

Each year the two organisations agree how to spend the pooled budget on health and social care services, outlined in the Better Care Fund Plan (see Related Documents). The plans are approved by the North Tyneside Health and Wellbeing Board and subsequently by the Government.

North Tyneside Council’s Contributions Policy for adult care and support services complies with the Care Act 2014 (Sections 14 and 17)

Its aim is to produce a fair and consistent framework for charging and financial assessment for all adults who receive care and support services, following an assessment of their individual needs and their individual financial circumstances.

Our financial assessments information sheets provide plain English information about how we work out charges for social care services.