Self Directed Support
This month the Wyre Senior Forum has been hearing about Self Directed Support with help from Jane Sagar from Lancashire Social Services.
Social care is beginning to change from the traditional way of providing services where professionals make all the decisions on our behalf about the support we can have and who will provide it.
Self Directed Support (SDS) will allow to people take control of the support they need to live their life as they choose.
The main difference will be that those of us who are eligible for social care can be given a budget. We can then decide how this will be spent to best satisfy our care needs. This will include opportunities to pursue individual interests, education, employment or voluntary work in the community.
You can use your money flexibly, creatively and in ways that make most sense in the way that you want to be supported. You will have more control over who provides your support and the way it is organised.
As we grow older many of us experience disabilities that make it difficult to maintain our independence without some help. The first step, therefore, is to complete a simple questionnaire that helps to assess how having a disability effects our day to day life. This looks at the essential living tasks, personal care, ability to do things in the community, visiting family and friends, dependence on health services and staying safe.
This straightforward assessment helps identify both the kind of support we might need and the indicative cost of providing it.
There then follows a series of steps to agree the care plan, organise and manage the support and arrange for the funding to be paid. Once everything is set up the money is paid into your account for you to spend in the agreed way.
This can be used to purchase services from a care provider or any other reasonable way that will help you maintain your independence and remain part of the community.
There will be the inevitable financial assessment in order to determine whether you need to make a contribution towards the cost of your support in just the same way as if the services were provided to you in the conventional way. Typically if you have savings of more than £22500 you will have to pay for the services.
But there is no barrier to making use the process to assess your needs and tapping the experience of the social services team in helping to identify innovative ways in which you can maintain your independence and receive support.
For more information on this new approach to care and support please call Lancashire Community and Social Services on 0845 0530009 or Wyre Social Services on 01253 866130.