After a care needs assessment, Hertfordshire County Council is answering two separate questions, not one. The first is what support you need. The second is who pays for it, and that is decided by a financial assessment rather than by the visit you have just had.
Families are often surprised by this. The assessment feels like the decision, so when nothing obvious happens afterwards it reads as delay.
It usually is not. It is the second question working its way through, and knowing how it works makes the wait far easier to manage.
The two questions the council is really answering
Everyone has the right to a social care assessment from the council, and it is provided free of charge. During it, a social care worker asks about day-to-day life to work out what is needed. If you have not had one yet, our guide on how to ask for a care needs assessment in Hertfordshire covers that stage.
What follows splits in two.
Needs. Whether what you need meets the council's eligibility criteria, and what support would meet it.
Money. Whether the council pays anything towards it. This turns on a financial assessment, and in Hertfordshire the threshold is £23,250 in money or property.
The two are assessed separately, and it is entirely normal to be told you have eligible needs and will still be paying for them yourself.
If you will be paying for your own care
Above £23,250 in money or property, you pay the full costs of your care.
That is the headline, and it is where a lot of families stop reading. It is worth carrying on, because the council still has an obligation to help you find the care, even when it is not paying for it.
Hertfordshire County Council says it can still tell you about brokerage services that help arrange care, homecare agencies, residential and nursing care, and equipment and care at home. That is a real service and it costs nothing to ask for.
In practice, most self-funding families in Hertfordshire go straight to a provider without ever using it, which is their right. But if you are choosing between options and want a starting list that is not a marketing list, the council is the place to ask.
The four-month rule almost nobody is told about
This is the single most useful thing in this article, so it gets its own heading.
Hertfordshire County Council asks you to tell it four months in advance of your savings dropping below £23,250, so that it can review your situation.
Four months. Not when you get there.
If you are self-funding and can see the money running down, work out roughly when you will cross the line and put a reminder in the diary four months before it. Leaving it until you arrive at the threshold means the review starts from cold, and the care carries on being paid for out of savings while it does.
Nobody tends to volunteer this. It sits in a paragraph on the council's own paying-for-care pages and is easy to miss entirely.
If the council will fund some or all of it
Where the council does contribute, it works with you to agree a support plan, and the plan carries a personal budget, which is the amount allocated for your care.
From there you have a choice about how the money is used. The council can arrange the care for you. You can take the personal budget as a direct payment and arrange it yourself. Or you can do a combination of both.
Direct payments give the most control and the most administration, and they are the route most often taken by families who want to choose a specific provider. Our guide to how direct payments work in Hertfordshire sets out the mechanics.
If the person you are supporting is not the only one affected, remember that an unpaid carer can ask the council for a carer's assessment in their own right. That is a separate assessment, with its own outcome.
The rule that catches families out
There is one trap worth naming plainly.
If you arrange care privately, and then ask the council for an assessment later when the situation changes, the council may not be able to continue the same level of care. It assesses needs against its own criteria, and those criteria are not the same as the package you chose and paid for.
Read that carefully if you are self-funding a substantial package. It does not mean private care is the wrong choice, and for most families it is not. It means the level of care you have been buying is not a baseline the council inherits.
It also means the four-month notice above is worth more than it first appears. It is the window in which that conversation can be had properly rather than in a hurry.
Where to get advice you can trust
Three routes, in the order most families find useful.
HertsHelp, the council's free advice service, on 0300 123 4044 or at hertshelp.net. Open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 9am to 5pm, Wednesday 9am to 7pm, and Saturday and Sunday 10am to 4pm. It is free and it is independent of any provider.
NHS continuing healthcare, if the needs are primarily health rather than social. This is care arranged and paid for by the NHS outside hospital, and it requires an assessment finding a primary health need. It is not common and it is worth asking about where nursing needs are significant.
A regulated financial adviser, if the sums are large or a property is involved. The Society of Later Life Advisers can help you find one. Advisers charge a fee, and for a substantial care package that fee is usually money well spent. We are not financial advisers and nothing here is financial advice.
Common Questions About What Happens After a Care Needs Assessment
How long does it take to hear back after a care needs assessment?
There is no single national timescale, and it varies with how complex the situation is and whether a financial assessment is also running. If you have heard nothing and are unsure where things stand, ring the council and ask which stage it is at, needs or finance, because the answer usually explains the wait.
Can I start care privately while I wait for the council's decision?
Yes, and many families do, particularly where someone has come out of hospital or a carer is close to exhaustion. Be aware of the point above: care you arrange and pay for yourself is not automatically continued at the same level if the council later takes over. Keep a clear record of what has been put in place and why.
What happens if my savings fall below £23,250?
Tell Hertfordshire County Council four months before you expect to reach that point, so it can review your situation in time. Waiting until you get there means the review begins after the money has largely gone rather than before.
Where to start
If you have just had the assessment, the single most useful thing you can do this week is find out which of the two questions you are waiting on.
Needs or money. They move at different speeds, they are handled by different people, and knowing which one is holding things up turns an open-ended wait into a specific one you can chase.
We are an independent, family run provider registered with the Care Quality Commission, working across Hertfordshire, and what later life care at home involves is often a smaller and earlier step than families expect. If it helps to talk it through with someone who arranges care every day, our St Albans office is on 01727 324 127 or [email protected].
Figures and process checked on 1 September 2026 against Hertfordshire County Council's advice for people paying for their own care and the NHS guidance on continuing healthcare, both linked above. Thresholds change; check the council's own pages before relying on a figure.
Arranging Care Is Simple
Starting care can feel like a big step. We keep it calm and straightforward, and we are here to guide you from your very first call.
1. Talk to us
Get in touch by phone or request a callback. We will listen, answer your questions and help you understand the options, so you can decide what feels right in your own time.
2. A home visit and initial consultation
We arrange a visit to understand your routines, your home and what matters most to you. Together we agree an initial consultation and shape the support that feels right.
3. Your care begins
A small, familiar team starts your care, arriving at the agreed times and staying involved as your needs change. We remain your trusted adviser throughout.
Whenever you are ready, we are here to help.