A Direct Payment is a way of keeping people in control of their life and empowering them to take control of their circumstances and give them choices about who provides their support and when.
There shouldn’t really be anything complicated about the conversation, I’ll talk to people about whether a PA might be the right thing, employing an agency might be good for them.
We’re saying to people you’ve got the right to choose who’s your provider.
So if people want to have that choice, we make sure that they get it.
Now you need some paid support, so we need to figure out who the best person is to do that, so who’s the best person to come and support you at home and what that looks like.
Now, there’s different ways we can do that.
One of the ways we can do that is we can ask the local authorities brokerage services to identify an agency and they’ll send somebody in.
So we figure that you need half an hour most days in the week to plan your day.
But the other way we can do it is that you can have more choice about who comes in to provide your support.
So I can choose who I can get my care from?
Absolutely, that’s the whole point of doing it this way, because there’s all sorts of different agencies in the locality around here, some which you might be aware of.
You might have friends or family that have used agencies before that might have had good reviews or bad reviews.
So it might be worth you having a look around and seeing if there’s any provider that would be best for you.
Okay
You could invite the providers along to have a chat with them and see if there’s any that you like more than others.
I know that there are certain things that are important to you, so for example whoever comes into the house has got to like Luna the dog.
Yes of course.
Because these are really important things when we ask the provider what we want.
Some providers might be able to accommodate that, some may not.
So we can rule some out straight away.
That’s it yeah.
And then we can interview the best ones perhaps.
One of the benefits of doing it this way or as a direct payment would be that if you don’t use your support on a certain day, for example your mum took you out or you had a hospital appointment, you could potentially bank that time.
So if I would cancel a call if I had a hospital appointment, who would I have to contact?
So there would be no need to call me, it’s about you having that relationship with the provider, so it’s all about you having that control
Right.
And I know that your mum and dad have been wanting to go on holiday haven’t they?
So when they go away they feel very worried about leaving you so it might be that you could use those banked times for that purpose.
So that you’ve got that security or safety net when they’re away.
With Direct Payments how does the money side work?
OK, this is called direct payments but that sounds a little misleading because it’s not all about money, it’s about the choice and control that you’ve got.
You’ve agreed that you’d like the choice and you’d like the control so now we need to figure out how we work the money side of things.
Ideally we’d want to give you as much control as possible.
And what that means is the money that’s allocated to you would be transferred to a bank account in your name and then you could pay the provider directly.
Some people can’t manage a bank account so in those cases, perhaps the local authority would pay the provider of their choice directly.
We’ve got a direct payments support service locally so I’ll introduce you to them and they can help you to take things forward.
Great, thank you.
For me it’s really important that I offer Direct Payments.
It’s a no brainer for me.
It’s critical that people have choice about who comes in and supports them in their own homes.
Using a direct payment can help people build a life.
Two months ago I wouldn’t have been able to get out and join a choir but now I’ve had help and it just gives me the confidence to do it by myself again.