FOI request (FOIR-741657720)

Single-handed and double-handed care policies and practices

Requested Mon 18 August 2025
Responded Wed 20 August 2025

I am a researcher at the University of Winchester and am currently embarking on a project that intends to better understand the policies, practices, and rationale behind double-handed and single-handed care within adult social care at home.

I am working with another academic at the university (Dr Rachel Harrison) and we are contacting all Local Authorities across England to enquire as to their current approaches to these modes of care. We aim to establish where consistencies and discrepancies exist between LA’s. Where discrepancies are found, we aim to explore the potential reasons behind them with a view to developing future research studies that will begin to form a robust evidence-base for double- and single-handed care. This could then feed back to LA’s and be used to guide and inform future decisions regarding the most appropriate application of double- and single-handed care across the country.

We would be very grateful if you would be able to respond to this message and provide us with any formal communication and/or documentation that can help us better understand the following:

1. Do you have any official policy guidelines that describe what qualifies someone to receive double- or single-handed care?

2. If so, what is the rationale that underlies these guidelines and what determines the level of care someone can receive?

3. In practice, are there any issues or barriers that have been encountered when implementing either double- or single-handed care?

4.Has there been a shift in the qualifying criteria for someone who can receive double-handed care? (That is, how long has your current policy been in place, how is it different to anything that existed previously?)

5. If there is a preference towards single-handed care, what is the rationale behind this and how has this been managed?

Our aim is to publish our findings in a peer-reviewed journal that is focused on policy and practice within adult social care. However, we will protect all LA’s who respond to our messages by keeping them – and any materials they provide us with – anonymous. We are not trying to single out LA’s. Rather, we want to determine average trends across the country as a whole.

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Response

Information not held.

This area is dealt with by East Sussex County Council Adult Social Care, please visit their website for further information:

https://www.eastsussex.gov.uk