Council and democracy

Better Care, Higher Standards - our charter for long term care in Hertfordshire

1. We base our services on:

• treating you with courtesy, honesty and respect for your dignity
• helping you to achieve and sustain the maximum possible independence
• working in partnership with you to provide the services you need,
• involving you in decisions and giving you enough information to make informed choices
• helping you to give your views through advocacy and other representative organisations
• fair treatment according to need and without discrimination regarding age, sex, race, religion, disability or sexual orientation
• making sure you feel able to complain about the standard of services you get and that you are not treated worse because you complain.

2. We will provide information on what help is available, who for, and how to get it. We will publish, and work to, our respective eligibility criteria which set out who qualifies for help.

3. We will work together when the services you need are provided by more than one of us.

4. Whether services are provided directly, or by others on our behalf, we want to be sure that they are all of a good quality. Registration, regular inspections, monitoring systems and contractual agreements help us to ensure that the standards we set are maintained.

5. Where charges apply for any services we will ensure that they are calculated fairly, that you are given clear notification and that there is a clear process to answer your queries.

6. As a user of services, or as a carer of someone who uses our services, we will listen and take account of your views on your needs and how you want us to meet them.

7. We should always inform you when we are recording information about you, ask for your consent when we wish to share information with others involved in your care, and share our recording with you. If you want to see other records about you, we will arrange this.

8. If you need to complain, we will try to resolve your concerns as quickly as possible. If we have done something wrong we will apologise, try to put it right, and do what we can to ensure the mistake is not repeated.

9. We promise to monitor performance against the charter, publicly report back on our performance, and take steps to improve our performance where this is necessary.