This is a free confidential service to advise you about the care of older people. 

We will ask you for some information to help us advise you, but you can choose how much you share. We won’t share your personal details outside of the charity without your consent, unless there is a need to safeguard a person at risk. You can find out more in our privacy notice, or you can ask from more information when you speak to an adviser.

Please note we are not an emergency or crisis service. We would strongly advise anyone with a serious concern about a vulnerable person to contact the safeguarding team in the local authority where the person is residing or the local health and social care trust, if they are in Northern Ireland.‍

Please read our Terms of Use below to understand more about the service, what we can support you with and what you can expect from us.

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Adviceline terms of use

Welcome to Care Rights UK’s advice service. This is a free and confidential service. We provide advice and information on social care for older people. We aim to give you the knowledge and confidence to take action for yourself or a loved one.  

When referencing Care Rights UK in these terms we will use ‘we’ or ‘us’ or ‘our’, and when referencing adviceline users, we will use the terms ‘you’.

How to access our service

• You can contact the adviceline by phone, email or via our contact form.

• Alternatively, you may book an appointment via our website (above) and an adviser will call you.

• We will attempt to respond to enquiries within three working days. But at busy times this might be longer.

• If you need to speak to an adviser, booked appointments are limited to 30 minutes. ‍

• We will attempt to respond to you via your preferred communication method.

• Enquiries will be responded to in accordance with our staffing rota.  ‍ ‍

• Where your enquiry is outside of the remit of the service or the support that we can give, we will seek to signpost you wherever possible to an appropriate service. Where you require legal advice, we cannot recommend individual lawyers. ‍

• Although we try to ensure all links to external agencies and organisations are appropriate and accurate, we cannot be held responsible for the information about those organisations.

Remit of the service

• ‍ Our charity exists to help older people who need care. If you need information or advice about the care of a person younger than 60, we are usually unable to help.

• We always seek to provide accurate and up to date information to help you understand your rights and options. We are not responsible for the accuracy or completeness of any information provided. We will not be liable to you or any third party for any loss, damage, cost or other liability which occurs as a result of or in connection with providing services to you.

• We do not provide legal, health or personal financial advice.‍

• We are not an emergency or crisis service. We would strongly advise anyone with a serious concern about a vulnerable person to contact the safeguarding team in the local authority where the person is residing or the local health and social care trust, if they are in Northern Ireland.‍

• We are not an advocacy service – we cannot represent you at meetings or act on your behalf. See ‘Reaching out to third parties’ below.‍

• We seek to empower you through information and guidance. The final responsibility for judgements and decisions, and the actions that flow from them, lie with you.

• We withhold the right to not respond to an enquirer.

Information we will ask for

We will ask you for information to help us advise you. We appreciate that it can sometimes be hard to share some details with us. But it is your decision what you wish to share with us and we want you to feel safe.

‍You can:

• ‍Agree a false name, which we can use to record details of your enquiry to refer back to, should you need to contact us again.‍

• Withhold information from us that you do not want to share, but please bear in mind that this may affect the advice and information we can give.‍

• Please bear in mind, that if we believe that someone is in immediate danger, then we are legally bound to alert the safeguarding team at their local authority, or the local health and social care trust, if they are in Northern Ireland.

Reaching out to third parties ‍

We are here to empower you with information and advice. We do not reach out to third parties on your behalf, except in exceptional circumstances. We will only do this if we believe you are unable to do this yourself, have no one else able to do so for you, and we believe it is in the best interests of an older person to seek support from a third party. This might include reporting our shared concerns to:

• Adult Social Services ‍

• Care service manager‍

• Care regulator‍

• Safeguarding teams (in more serious instances)

We do not share personal information outside of the organisation without your knowledge and consent. There may be rare occasions when there appears to be a need to safeguard you or another individual, when it would be necessary for us to contact the relevant statutory authorities (for example, where someone is in immediate danger of serious harm).

What you can expect from our service

‍ We will always seek to create a positive, inclusive and supportive environment for everyone. To enable us to do this, we will:

• ‍Treat you with respect, empathy and professionalism‍.

• Listen without judgement.

• ‍Seek to provide accurate information, tailored to your situation, based on the information you give us‍.

• Keep your information safe and confidential in accordance with our privacy policy. Please also see ‘Reaching out to third parties’ above‍.

• Seek to improve the service by listening to your feedback.

What we ask of you

In order to help us support you, we ask that you:‍

• Treat our staff, volunteers and others with respect and courtesy‍.

• Use respectful means of communication. Please refrain from:

  • Swearing or name calling

  • Shouting ‍

  • Discriminatory or derogatory remarks‍

  • Asking staff for personal details (that they are not allowed to share)

  • Harassment of any kind

• ‍If you use disrespectful language or misuse the service, we may set boundaries on communications or end the call.

• Be available for your booked appointment, or to let us know, wherever possible 24 hours before, if you need to cancel or rearrange the appointment.

• Be in a quiet, private space so that you can speak openly and safely (we ask that you are not driving).

• ‍Use the service appropriately and within the remit of our charity.

• Contact us via your preferred method with a brief overview of your enquiry so that we can respond to you as soon as our resources allow. We are a very small team and your patience is appreciated during busy times. ‍

• Let us know the outcome of the advice we provide and respond to any requests for feedback – this helps us to improve the service for others and share the impact of our work.

Thank you for taking the time to read our terms of use. Our aim is to support you in a safe and respectful way to ensure that you and the person you are concerned about have their rights and dignity respected. By working together, we can ensure the best possible experience for you and all those who need our service and bring about change for those who need care. We look forward to working with you.

Helpful reading

Explore our guides to common problems with care.