Happy to take and spend a Social Care 'Personal Budget'?

[Long Tom]

Hi. Until recently I was involved in assessing and arranging for 'personal budgets' to be paid to people who needed care. An awful lot of the time, to make this work, family members would need to take responsibility for holding and spending the budget, incuding deciding whose help to buy in or even who to employ. It was so rarely taken up it seemed to make a mockery of the whole idea, along with the govt drive to keep professionals out of the picture as much as possible (which should be a good move but we were needed to make arrangements 95% of the time).

Is anyone out there making this work, commissioning or employing carers on behalf of your loved one? If so, should more do it? If not, what would help?

 

[pippop1]

Hi, We pay carers for MIL (with her money as husband has POA) is that what you mean? I don't think she's eligible for any kind of help apart from Attendance Allowance. Although it's never been suggested. She doesn't have a social worker or anything like that, doesn't want to go to any kind of day care.

When a problem arises we deal with it (e.g. problem with keys, get keysafe installed, problem with her"playing" with gas cooker - had the hob disconnected) and so on. We do all her shopping, sort out all bills, post is diverted to our house via POA and Post Office, arrange times and pay for cleaner, hairdresser, chiropodist who all visit (she doesn't like going out at all) and carers come twice a day to make food and check on stuff.

She does get the Council Tax exemption though, for living alone but with a "severe mental impairment". Not many people know about that one and it does save a good deal of money which we direct towards paying for her care.

We've always assumed that as she has savings she isn't entitled to anything for free. So maybe the answer to your question is to publicise how people or relatives of those with dementia know that the person is eligible for Social Care. I don't know or know how to check.

 

[Izzy]

Is anyone out there making this work, commissioning or employing carers on behalf of your loved one? If so, should more do it? If not, what would help?

I live in Scotland so things might be different here. I use Direct Payments to cover my husband's care. In Scotland we are entitled to free personal care for the elderly - 3 hours a day. My husband has this plus 4 hours social care. The Social Work Department pay their contribution in every four weeks and my husband has a standing order from his account to cover his contribution. I manage the budget with assistance from the dedicated Direct Payments worker at the Dundee Carers Centre and the finance branch of the Social Work Department's Independent Living Team.

I employ the carers and their time sheets are sent every four weeks to the above departments. I am sent their pay slips and I transfer their wages from our Direct Payments Account into their own accounts. I had assistance from the Direct Payments worker at the start of the whole process and she ensured I understood what was required of me re the paper work which has to be submitted every four weeks. She would have helped me interview for Personal Assistants (which is what the carers are called) but at that time I knew of two people who were interested in the position.

I have nothing but praise for the set up. I use the hours to suit my husband's needs and it has worked out perfectly for us.

 

[nitram]

All about Personal Budgets

http://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/personal-budgets

The disabled person has both a 'care needs' and financial assessment.

 

[Long Tom]

Yes, Personal Budgets = cash from social services, sorry!

My starting post could have carried a little more explanation.
Yes, I meant the money you are offered to use to pay for a loved ones' care, after a social worker or similar does a Personal Assessment (of what used to be called 'needs' - in some places this is a 'self-assessment' done by the person who may need services with support). In some places this is still called a direct payment. My feeling is not many people have the support that Izzy and her husband get, which sounds ideal, but I presume there are 'brokerage' costs to pay to the people who do the admin?

This whole area is fraught with terms and rules. Yes, you get no cash if you have over a certain amount of savings, but you can still get help to set up employing trusted friends, recruiting your own care team etc. I still suspect that nowhere near enough people are approaching social care services, in the belief they would have to forfeit control. This is not the case. A person being assessed does not have to be without the help they need either, though you usually cannot get relatives who live with you paid with this money. Use Nitram's link if this is really news to you!

Some local authorities are even trying to cut social workers out of the process. Not sure how I feel about that...

 

[PeggySmith]

I knew about it but couldn't quite see what difference it would make in MIL's case. She had home carers coming in provided by an agency with whom we were quite happy. If we'd gone down the road of a personalised budget, we'd just have had to take the money from SS and pay the agency ourselves.

I don't quite understand why other people don't take it up, though.