Needing more detail to establish the new level of need

When carrying out a review, case managers might need more detail to establish the individual’s new level of entitlement. They should choose either of the options below: 

• Contact the individual to ask follow-up questions. Here, case managers must ensure that this phone call does not become or feel to the individual like, a consultation, as consultations are carried out by practitioners only. For more details, see operational guidance on contacting individuals with follow-up questions
• Choose the decision-making tool that is most appropriate and most likely to provide the information they need

There are a number of decision-making tools for case managers to use:

• consulting guidance, such as the decision-making guidance, operational guidance, medical guidance
• requesting a Case discussion
• requesting supporting information 
• requesting a Consultation

For more detail on choosing the most appropriate decision-making tool, consult the Principles of Decision-Making chapter.

When establishing the individual’s level of need, supporting information:

• is one of several decision-making tools
• should not be the default step to take 

Rather, the case manager should choose the action based on what’s most appropriate in the review at hand. As part of that, they should consider what’s best for the individual.

For example, a quick phone call to ask a follow-up question might be better than the individual having to: 

• collect supporting information from their wider support network
• wait a number of weeks until the case manager’s request for supporting information has been answered by the contact the individual has provided.

If the case manager decides that gathering supporting information is the most appropriate decision-making tool, they need to decide which source would be best-placed to provide the information they need. This can be a professional or a member of the individual’s wider support network.

Crucially, requesting supporting information should be done with the goal to more fully understand the individual’s new level of needs. The aim here is not to 'verify' what the individual has told us.

Case managers should remember to follow the ‘collaborative information gathering’ where it is appropriate to gather supporting information at review. The individual might already have relevant supporting information at hand to help you make a determination meaning the Agency might not need to directly request it from a professional or the client’s support network. For more information, see the ‘Gathering Supporting Information’ chapter.