Direct payment

[cherry45]

Hi
Does anyone have any experience of direct payments from local authority.
Are you severely restricted to use just for personal assistants, or day care services.
We are only allowed by LA to buy these services and they won’t allow us to use it for travel or anything else.any advice

[Nell]

Hi

I haven’t any direct experience but I know it is very tricky. Have you seen these - are they any help:

https://www.mencap.org.uk/sites/default/files/2018-03/Direct%20Payments%20overview_0.pdf

https://www.carersuk.org/help-and-advice/practical-support/getting-care-and-support/direct-payments

Best of luck
Sarah

[SarahL]

Hello @cherry45

Welcome to FamilyHub. Thank you for posting a question. I have had a bit of a look round and I wondered if any of these conversation would help you at all?

Help with Direct Payments

Hello, my name is Miriam and I work for Mencap’s information and advice team. It’s good to hear that your son enjoys going to the respite service, and I’m sure you’re very worried about him losing contact with his friends. I thought it might be useful to post what the government guidance says about this issue. Point 12.57 should be of particular interest: 12.55 As a general rule, direct payments should not be used to pay for local authority-provided services from the ‘home’ local authority. W…

Direct payments

Hello, my sister has been receiving direct payments for a number of years. To be honest, we have struggled to utilise the full amount each month-mainly because we were very unclear about what we could and could not spend it on. We were being told on a regular basis that we should be spending the full amount otherwise it will be taken away from us. In the end we used it for my mum to take my sister away or for expenditure related to activities to do with her day centre. Earlierthis year received …

Direct Payments and how they work for us

Within the last few months we found it necessary to move our son from one day service provider to another.He was assessed some 6-7 years ago as needing day care 5 days each week after he left college at 24.His day service provider after assessment was with Somerset County Council and we were happy that he spent 5 days each week at the day centre.He travelled on a minibus which again was provide by the County Council transport and they picked him up and dropped him off at the end of the day.We ha…

Direct payment

Hi Does anyone have any experience of direct payments from local authority. Are you severely restricted to use just for personal assistants, or day care services. We are only allowed by LA to buy these services and they won’t allow us to use it for travel or anything else.any advice

If you’d like to chat anything through further, our Mencap advice line is here to help: 0808 808 1111

All the best and good luck,
Sarah

[alanwpickup]

I am involved in carers support services and Direct Payments are a constant source of confusion! Firstly there appears to be no set rules for how the monies can be spent, each local authority sets it own guidelines. Even within local authorities there can be disagreement with one dept saying you can do this and another saying you can’t.

Another thing that has happened with some of our carers is that they have been subject to employment rules as they are directly employing personal assistants, this brings in such things like sick pay and pensions etc.

There were plans to combine Health and Social Care Direct payments, but i have lost track of what is happening there see https://www.england.nhs.uk/ipc/what-is-integrated-personal-commissioning-ipc/

I have heard of people challenging authorities about transport and what is important to the individual, but this has taken a lot of effort. Check if you have a Carers Support Service in your area or a People First organisation.

Hope you succeed

[cherry45]

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my query.
I will look into your suggestions.
Best wishes

[cherry45]

Thank you Sarah

[charlie1]

My son had to change to a different day care service and we thought and applied for Direct Payments which is paid into a seperate account each month(every 4 weeks)We had a surplus and and I asked if I could put it into savings but was told no.He attends day care 5 days a week and we get a sum of money which equates to a month of day care or £50 a day.The day care service are taking several “service users” or “students” as they call them, on holiday to a caravan park so I have used some of the excess to pay for this holiday because it is for him and him only.
I can see that it is hard but if you were not getting the Direct Payments the LA would be directly paying for the service you use for day care.With DP you have a choice of provider but of course you will have to pay for travel.Will you not be paying for travel out of the mobility allowance that you get?

[charlie1]

No I am not a social worker but why would it make any difference? I was putting my views on Direct Payments down. I have worked with many social workers and all have been working for the benefit of their clients. Most families with learning disabled children/adults should be claiming/trying to claim mobility allowances