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Belong Life Spring 2012 Understanding direct payments: what you’re entitled to and how to access them The terms ‘personalisation’, ‘personal budgets’ and ‘direct payments’ have been used in the social care arena for several years, but there is still much confusion about what they mean and how they apply to people receiving care at home. Caption Testimonial “I have recommended domiciliary care to so many people since I discovered Belong at Home. The thing I really appreciate is that they are willing to do whatever is required.” Jenny Written Charities, organisations and government believe that an improved vision of social care should revolve around individually tailored care. This is known as ‘personalisation’, in other words, people are best placed to know what care they need, and how those care needs can be met. Older people who currently receive a contribution from their local authority to pay for care at home can influence how their care is provided by understanding ‘personal budgets.’ This term refers to the funding a person is allocated, after an assessment, to meet their care needs. Choice and control Local authorities offer different ways for people to get involved in managing their allocated personal budget. One method of managing the funding is to opt for ‘direct payments.’ A direct payment is a cash payment made by a local authority into the bank account of a person who has been assessed to receive care, or another ‘suitable person’, for example a spouse or partner, if they do not have mental capacity. Direct payments can only be used to pay for services that a person’s local authority has assessed to be a care ‘need’, and cannot be used to cover residential care. If a person believes their direct payment is unjustifiably short of what is needed to cover their care services, they can appeal to the local authority. Receiving direct payments is not the only way in which an individual can express and direct how they get their care support. Local authorities can also offer to manage a person’s allocated care budget with input from that individual or another suitable person, transfer it to a third party to be managed, or arrange for the account to be managed by a trustee. Local authorities can also provide a mixture of those options to suit a person’s needs. Why opt for direct payments? By receiving local authority funding directly, it is believed that a person can have more choice and control over how and when they receive their care. For example, a person living with the early stages of dementia at home may use their direct payments to choose to go on an outing one morning a week with a carer they employ directly, rather than attending a day centre. There are a growing number of organisations that offer a more flexible service to traditional care at home providers who have local authority contracts. Indeed, Belong’s domiciliary service, Belong at Home, was launched for this reason. It is designed to offer a flexible service to suit the individual rather than the provider, and help support an older person to live well in their home and community. Belong at Home offers a range of support options from personal care through to companionship, perhaps supporting a person to do their weekly food shopping, attend a regular hospital appointment or maintain hobbies, whether at home or in the community. Whatever the level of support received, Belong at Home nominates dedicated support workers that are matched to customers to ensure they see the same faces each time. Customers can be specific about the time their Belong at Home carers visit, or change the time in which they receive support, week to week. This, for example, may help customers keep to routine activity in their community, or be used to introduce them to new meaningful activity such as Belong village experience days. Laura Evans, a Belong at Home Co-ordinator, says: “It’s made a huge difference to my working life, the fact that I know I’ve got dedicated time to my customers, and that we’re able to offer what they want, when they want it and how they want it.” Tracy Paine, Belong’s Operations Director, adds: “Deciding what type of care at home is right for you, or a loved one, can be challenging. It’s important that people talk to their local authority about what support they are eligible for, and research the range of local high quality services available to them.” Further information Personal budgets and direct payments Individuals who are eligible for help from their local authority to get the care support they need should talk to their local authority about a personal budget assessment. It is important to note that contributions to the cost of care a person receives may still apply when care is arranged via direct payments. Charity Age UK has several factsheets on care and support and help at home, which can be found at www.ageuk.org.uk or by telephoning their advice line 0800 169 6565. Belong at Home Belong at Home is a high quality, flexible support service for older people living in their own homes, run out of four centres in Atherton, Crewe, Macclesfield and Wigan. For more information about Belong at Home, call 0800 032 2266 or email enquiries@belong.org.uk 6 7
A day in the life... Sam Jackson Belong Life Spring 2012 Head Chef at Belong Crewe Sam Jackson is the Head Chef at Belong Crewe. She’s held the position since the village opened just over twelve months ago and is responsible for the management of the Bistro team, creation of menus for functions, cooking lessons for residents and supporting staff from the households with cooking and meal preparation. “I used to work in hotels but the hours were too long; I was working until 2am in the morning. When this position became available I’d recently married and wanted to spend more quality time with my family. It’s all about the work-life balance and this has worked out really well for me. I get a lot more pleasure from my job at Belong Crewe and the feedback from customers and visitors is really rewarding.” Preparation is everything “The first thing I do each morning is take my dog for a walk, and then it’s in to work for 7.30am. The day starts by making sure everything is prepared for the smooth running of the kitchen. We also deliver shopping to the households for them to be able to do their own cooking. The support workers actually cook all the meals in the kitchens within the households, so that residents can see and smell their meals being cooked as well as joining in if they want to. “When our staff ask me how to cook specific meals, my job is to help and support them with this and I can either go into the household and give a cooking lesson or we can make the meal in the Bistro kitchen and deliver it to the household if they prefer. If the customers choose to, a whole household will book tables in the Bistro and they all come down to eat together, like going out to a pub or café in town – and the customers enjoy a pleasant change of scenery and we get to cook for them in the Bistro. “I oversee the running of the Bistro throughout the day, making sure the variety of food on offer is fresh and appetising and that the ‘special of the day’ is our usual excellent standard. “We get lots of families and friends, plus members of the wider community, who eat regularly in the Bistro – we tend to remember the regular customers and can usually predict their order, which they really like. “My favourite day of the week is ‘Fish Day Friday’. We prepare battered or breaded fish and we also do fish pie or homemade fish cakes, both of which are really popular. All the fish is fresh so it’s really appetising. Passion rewarded “Probably the most rewarding element of my job, and the area I have a real passion for, is the work that I do creating meals for customers who have swallowing difficulties. These customers can’t eat solid food and their only previous option has been to have a complete meal pureed. We create meals that actually look and taste like the real thing for them so that they can enjoy a quality eating experience just like everyone else. “I do this using moulds; so for example if I were preparing a bacon sandwich for a customer with swallowing difficulties I would puree the bread and then reconstruct it to look like a piece of bread using moulds, then puree the bacon and reconstruct it to look like a piece of bacon...and so on. It was the nicest thing ever when I gave one of our customers a reconstructed bacon sandwich, which was something they hadn’t been able to have for four years. ‘Journey of food’ “As well as the cooking, I also help to run a gardening club at Belong Crewe, along with some of our customers. There’s now a herb garden and lots of vegetables are being grown which can all be brought into both the households and the Bistro kitchen. We get really excited about the journey of the food from the garden to our plates and we all love seeing the efforts of their gardening activities being served up as tasty meals. Roasted chicken dinner served with carrots, mashed potatoes, broccoli and gravy “At the end of the working day, 6pm, I make sure that the Bistro team are okay and close down the kitchen. Next I make sure that the households have got everything that they need for the night before heading home. “I’d love to say that I get home to an evening meal ready and waiting for me, but the reality is that I pre-make a lot of our family meals and freeze them...then start all over again when I get home. “We don’t often go out to eat but occasionally we take a trip to my favourite restaurant in Nantwich where I enjoy someone cooking for me for a change!” 8 9
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