Direct Payments and other ways to use your Adult Social Care Personal Budget
After you've had an assessment of your care and support needs, you may be allocated a Personal Budget to use to pay for your care and support.
If you receive a Personal Budget we'll give you some advice to help you plan how to use it.
Please note that Personal Budgets are for social care needs. There is a separate system called Personal Health Budgets run by the NHS for people with long-term health issues and disabilities.
Who to contact
- Telephone
- 01635 503050
- Website
- Personal budgets for adults
Where to go
- Name
- West Street House
- Address
-
West Street
Newbury
Berkshire - Postcode
- RG14 1BZ
Time / Date Details
- When is it on
- The office and phone line is open Monday to Thursday 8.30am to 5.00pm and 8.30am to 4.30pm on a Friday. We are closed on bank holidays.
Other Details
Availability
- Age Ranges
-
18-25
26-49
55+ - Referral required
- Yes
- Other notes
For out of hours social care (not health) emergencies, please contact the Emergency Duty Team: edt@bracknell-forest.gov.uk Tel: 01344 786543 Fax: 01344 786535
Local Offer
- Description
Understanding your needs and circumstances to help you stay as independent as possible
Before we can work out the best way forward in your situation, we'll talk to you to understand what you want and need.
This may involve a discussion about resources in your community that might be helpful for you. It will also look at your strengths, things you can still do independently, and things where your family, carers or wider community can help you. We'll work with you to work out ways we can help maintain or improve your wellbeing and prevent and reduce the care and support you need.
The conversation may include consideration of your care and support needs against national eligibility criteria.
Arranging an assessment
Get in touch with us online to request a call about your needs.
If you are unable to tell us what you need, have communication difficulties or have no-one else to support you we will arrange an independent advocate to help you through the process and share your views.
What can Direct Payments be used for?
According to your identified support needs:
- You can choose to employ someone as a Personal Assistant and arrange your own care. You will be considered an employer and we will give guidance and support with this.
- You can fund day activities or replacement care (respite).
- You may choose to use an agency. Information about agencies can be found in the Adults - Need Help at home section of this directory
- If you use an agency for personal care it must be registered with the Care Quality Commission: www.cqc.org.uk
- You may choose to use a combination of the council commissioned support and Direct Payments support.
- Direct Payments are not an extra income to spend as you wish.
Receiving a Direct Payment
Receiving a Direct Payment means that you take responsibility for arranging and buying the care and support to meet needs that have been agreed in your support plan.
People who decide to take Direct Payments have more choice and flexibility about how their support needs are met.
Our Adult Personal Budgets - Direct Payment Guide provides details on the stages to setting up a Direct Payment and the help we can offer.
Direct Payments can be used flexibly to:
- employ a Personal Assistant
- fund day activities or replacement care
- directly employ an agency
- or use a combination of council commissioned services
West Berkshire Council will need to agree your plan with you.
If you decide on Direct Payments, you'll need to sign a contract which clearly outlines your responsibilities and shows you understand them. This is called a Direct Payment agreement.
Once the Direct Payments are set up, we'll make arrangements with you to monitor and review your account from time to time.
Finding a care and support provider
You may decide to use your personal budget to employ a personal assistant.
- SEN Provision Type
- Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties, Speech & Language Difficulties, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Physical Disability, Hearing Impairment, Severe Learning Difficulties, Visual Impairment
- Local Offer Age Bands
- 19 plus
General Provider
For guidance and support about Direct Payments including recruiting and employing Personal Assistants, contact the: Direct Payment Financial Reviewing Team 01635 503433 PBMonitoring@westberks.gov.uk If you require any information in a different format such as audio tape or in another language, please ask an English speaker to contact Adult Social Care on 01635 503050
National Eligibility Criteria The Care and Support (Eligibility Criteria) Regulations 2014 set out a national eligibility threshold. This means that there's a level of need at which we will offer support - it's now set by the government so it's the same wherever you live.
Further information about eligibility is available on the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) website. We can only give you support if you are assessed as having an eligible need. If you're not assessed as having an eligible need, we'll still provide information, advice and agree any preventative actions to help you remain independent. This might include putting you in touch with other services, organisations and support groups. If you're assessed as having eligible needs; we will work with you to identify solutions and agree the things we need to do to meet your requirements. We'll agree the steps with you and write them down in a detailed Care and Support plan for you.
Anyone, friends, relatives, carers, guardians or health professional can make a referral by making a phone call to 01635 503050 and answering a number of questions or by completing the online Adult Social Care enquiry form.
Response times vary according to the urgency of the need identified.
Adult Social Care services are chargeable. How much you pay will depend on your needs and your ability to pay for them. Information advice is free. If you require a chargeable service - we will carry out a financial assessment based on your personal financial circumstances only, to see whether you would have to contribute towards the cost of your service.
We aim to provide the best service to you and we like to know when we are getting it right. We also recognise that at times things can go wrong. When they do, we want to put things right quickly, and use the experience to improve our services and prevent future problems.
We will decide with you on the best way to resolve your complaint. If another organisation is involved, such as the National Health Service or a care provider, we'll also include them.
Our leaflet, Listening to Your Views - How to complain about or comment on Adult Social Care services provides a summary of our complaints process. How to make a complaint Speak to the manager of the service you are dealing with – most concerns or complaints can be resolved quickly through discussions with the manager or contact the Adult Social Care Complaints Manager by Email: complaintsadultssocialcare@westberks.gov.uk Telephone: 01635 503391 Fax: 01635 519939. Alternatively you can register your complaint online.
Pre-employment checks are carried out for all employees to ensure that they are suitable for employment, appropriately qualified and can be lawfully employed. For some roles, checks are carried out to ensure the applicant does not pose a risk to the safety of children, young people and/or vulnerable adults.
West Berkshire Council do not promote or endorse any of the services listed in this Directory. For more information on this please read our disclaimer.