Your questions
- What are Direct Payments?
- How will Direct Payments help me?
- Who can have a Direct Payment?
- Where can I go for information and practical help?
- How do I ask for a Direct Payment?
- What will my case worker do?
- What will I have to do?
- What happens next?
- What happens if my circumstances change?
- What do I do if there is an emergency?
- How do I end my Direct Payments?
- Could vouchers be an alternative to direct payments?
Direct Payments can give you greater control and choice in:
- the services you receive,
- who provides these to you,
- when you receive them and where.
Here are some examples of how Direct Payments could help you.
You could choose your own home carer rather than having whoever is sent to you:
“The carers sent by the agency were always very nice but I would never know who was going to turn up. Now I use my Direct Payments to employ a lady from our village to help me get up and go to bed. I still use the agency for some calls and for cover.”
You could arrange for your home carer to come at different times to suit what you want to do:
“Although I have care needs I still work. I found that when my job required me to have an early start it was often difficult to reorganise my care from its usual time in the morning, if it was short notice it was impossible. I still have my regular care from Cumbria Care but I use my Direct Payment to pay a friend when I need an early ‘get up’."
Instead of going regularly to the same day centre, you could choose to go to different centres or do different activities:
“I go to the day centre twice a week but I wanted to do an art class at my local college. I now have one day at the day centre and a Direct Payment for the other day which I use to pay someone to help me get to the college and to meet my care needs at my class.”
If you are a carer and are going on holiday, you could arrange for the person you look after to stay at home rather than having to go into a residential home:
“When I went away for a break my husband used to go into a local residential home for a short stay. The home was nice but not really his cup of tea. Now we have a Direct Payment and we organise a short term care package at home for him so that he gets to stay at home and I get my break.”
If you have been assessed as needing a piece of equipment to help you and you would like a different model or style:
“We wanted a more portable hoist so we could take it with us when we stayed with our daughter. We got a Direct Payment equal to the cost of the hoist that Adult Social Care would provide and topped it up with some money of our own so that we could buy a more portable model.”