Breakthrough on care funding

Farway

EdInvestor wrote: »

Hi Biggles.I think you're missing the point,

The idea is that you can EITHER take the money as cash and spend it yourself on your care OR the council can keep it and use it to provide the services, as now..

The catch will be that the money will be limited to what the council will pay, not what is needed to pay for a service

Again I return to my mothers case, her council [Wilts] will pay fully funded for care home, BUT in order to move her near us [Hants] my council does not run it's own homes, they use private only and will only pay around 300 per week, the cost of most is around 400 upwards to 700, so the gap is not bridgeable using private homes and those few that provide fully funded council funded spaces are very limited or non existent

My point is that the care funding may be worked out at say £25 per day [it does not matter what the figure is here], but you may never find private care for the sum you are allowed, and once a council, like Hants, has decided the sum they will pay all council sources vanish or become very limited such as to be non existent, which may be fine for the fitter & more able, but awful for the confused and infirm

PS for reasons given we have decided to let Wilts provide care home in Wilts, they have a fully funded contract with a charity to run them

balmaiden

I dont think Biggles is missing the point at all. As I said in an earlier post this form of direct payment is like a windfall to some elderly people who have not perhaps, had much money of their own in the past. They can also live in the past where money is concerned and expect to pay very little for any services required.

Margaret,yes, that is exactly the person I am talking about, the ones who cannot use taxis or any form of public transport, but need the help of day care mini buses.

I won't post further as we will all never agree on this subject. Believe you me for once in my life I would be happy to be proved wrong!!

Errata

I think this will be a cross between a curate's egg and a can of worms.
Many people will be much worse off if the right kind of support to administer the direct payment isn't available and if sufficient cash isn't available.
My view is that direct payments saves on local authorities social services admin costs and that although social services will in the short term continue to provide services, the next step will be to tender this provision out to the voluntary sector, generating another cost saving.
These cost savings will provide more services for more people, but we should remember that many districts can only provide services for THOSE AT RISK, not those in need. The extra funding from central government for the new scheme isn't going to make that much difference to the numbers of people who need services and the numbers that actually get them.

One point: older people can often make daft choices, just like working age adults do.

sloughflint

balmaiden wrote: »

I won't post further as we will all never agree on this subject. Believe you me for once in my life I would be happy to be proved wrong!!

Pity since you clearly have experience unlike others in this thread.

Biggles

margaretclare wrote: »

What a patronising statement!

Could you please explain at what stage, after a lifetime of deciding what is best for myself and making my own choices, I shall cease to be capable of so deciding? And at what stage a social worker, who doesn't know me, my background or the life that I've led, much less knows my present thoughts, needs and wishes, can be deemed to know better than I know myself?

Not patronising, Margaret, just practical. It's a statement I wouldn't have been able to make three or four years ago but one that my experience in that time, not all of it painless, leads me to make.

Perhaps I can turn your question around, and you will see what I'm getting at:-
Could you please explain at what point, once you have begun to need care, you become qualified to choose and administer 'care packages' and to promptly and efficiently deal with managing changes, some of which may be mental or psychological, in your own condition? And, if not, when your family will become so qualified?

Biggles

EdInvestor wrote: »

Hi Biggles.I think you're missing the point,

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,2224965,00.html

The idea is that you can EITHER take the money as cash and spend it yourself on your care OR the council can keep it and use it to provide the services, as now..

Thus for those who are already happy with current arrangements, nothing will change.

That was the old Direct Payments scheme. I had been under the impression that the difference between Direct Payments and this new scheme was that this was to be launched across the board.

If there is still a choice, I can't see that this is a new scheme. The press articles are a bit vague as yet on what exactly has changed (none of them even seem to be aware of Direct Payments, which doesn't help!).

Savvy_Sue

Errata wrote: »

One point: older people can often make daft choices, just like working age adults do.

:rotfl:Indeed. My dad recently spent a week in hospital, 90 miles from me and 20 from his home, and when he was due to be discharged my mum started checking bus timetables!

Mind you, I'm just wondering what IS a reasonable rate for excellent personal care, if required. Would you get (and keep) a superb carer for the minimum wage, for example?

There are obviously shortcomings to the current Direct Payments service, but whoever does the caring is either going to be self-employed, or work through an agency. If they're self-employed, they're only paid for the hours they're with you, so their hourly rate has to cover their travel time, their NI contributions, their tax, and any times they don't work - holidays, sickness etc. If they're employed by an agency, then the agency will need to keep something for their costs: employer's NI, sick pay, holiday pay, paying replacements at those times, recruiting other workers, liaising with clients etc.

People have sometimes asked about the going rate for a cleaner, and £7+ is not unusual, £10+ a possibility. If I needed personal care, I'd probably need a cleaner too, and I know which I'd want to reward most highly ...

I'm not saying I'd pay £15 per hour WILLINGLY, but if that's what it took to get excellence, I'd pay it.

monkeyspanner

Call me cynical but I think this is another case of the government of running scared. They know that the cost of care for the elderly is going to spiral therefore they are desparately looking for a way of detatching the provision of financial assistance from the real cost of providing that care. All this under the smokescreen of 'choice', it will not be providing choice when there isn't enough money for the care the person really needs.

It looks great at first glance and from the perspective of being reasonably fit and able to contemplate arranging for care provision for ourselves. But when someone needs this care they probably will be less able to make the effort to arrange their own care. What happens to them particularly if there are no relatives to help? In step the social workers again. So the situation has not really changed except in one very real sense, the money and the provision may no longer match.

cool_pinkie

We've done about this new system in my lectures and I think the offical title is 'Indiviualised Budgets'. As others have said the big problem is people might get a big chunk of money to last the year and then they have to arrange all their care.

This may work for some people but if you are already dealing with problems and stress then how likely will you feel to interview carers or arrange your own care for example. I think it could work if people had the right support but there's still vulnerable people who could be open to financial abuse.

EdInvestor

Some more details

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7136366.stm

If this scheme helps to bring down costs and extend the range of care providers into the wider business community, plus provide greater scrutiny on value for money and choice, then those who need care but self fund will be major beneficiaries.

At the moment they are overpaying twice for care in homes, once through normal taxes and once through higher fees due to the hidden subsidy to council funded residents.It's obvious that care costs are grossly over inflated and it's certainly not just the Government (ie the taxpayer) that's being fleeced..

Consumers themselves are best able to obtain value for money.