Direct payments are probably the most exciting change to have
taken place in recent years in the way that social care services
are provided.
Instead of social care teams arranging care, payments are
offered to people who meet the criteria for receiving care from the
Suffolk County Council. They can arrange the care themselves,
either by employing help directly or by buying in services from a
home care agency. With direct payments, day-to-day control of the
money and care package is passed to the person needs it, who has
the strongest incentive to ensure that it is spent properly on the
necessary services.
However, if people do not want a direct payment, services will
be arranged for them by a social care team instead.
Direct payments can be used for any community care service,
apart from permanent residential care. The amount of money given
will depend on the assessment of need, and will be directly related
to the amount of care that would be provided by Suffolk County
Council social care services.
More information
Please choose the most helpful version of the leaflet for
you:
Access to the direct payments service
The aim of the government is to increase people's independence,
by giving them choice and control over how their care needs are
met.
Everyone who is assessed as being eligible for care from Social
Care Services should be offered a direct payment, with a very few
exceptions. Even people who do not have the ability to understand
direct payments in depth should be able to have them provided that
they have adequate support. There is more information about this
service
in this
leaflet.
Some people are not able to access direct payments because they
are subject to certain mental health or criminal justice
legislation:
- people detained under mental health legislation who are on
leave of absence from hospital;
- conditionally discharged detained patients subject to Home
Office restrictions;
- patients subject to guardianship under mental health
legislation and those covered by the new power of supervised
discharge;
- people who are receiving after care or community care which
constitutes part of a care programme initiated under a court
order;
- people serving a probation or combination order requiring them
to undergo treatment for a mental health condition or for drug or
alcohol dependency.
Information for Suffolk County Council staff
Useful web sites
Department of Health Direct Payments information
National Centre for
Independent Living
Suffolk
Independent Living
SIL information leaflet (PDF,
3.2Mb)