National Eligibility Criteria

National Eligibility Criteria

National Eligibility Criteria are the way your council might decide whether you can receive social care support.

Your council may use the criteria if an assessment of your care needs decides you need social care support.

The criteria use 4 categories of risk to help decide whether you are eligible to receive social care support. They are:

• low risk
• moderate risk
• substantial risk
• critical risk

Your council may decide that your social care support needs meet the criteria for low risk or moderate risk. If so, you may be offered or pointed towards lower level support.

If you meet the criteria for substantial risk or critical risk, the council will aim to put your support in place within 6 weeks. The criteria and targets for providing social care support are guidelines that most Scottish councils have agreed to use. This means they are not legally binding.

Read more about National Eligibility Criteria.