Personal Pa care

not yet

You need to be assessed first before they agree to any personal budget for the direct payments. This is done through your local council with the social services. With either a needs assessment or a carers assessment. It can takes quite a few months for this to happen and for it all to be set up.

My daughter receives direct payments. I had a carers assessment last year. Her social worker came to the house and done the assessment. A report was written along and an amount was agreed as to how much she was allowed each week. Once that was a care plan was written.

Once the personal budget has been agreed you can either ask your local council to manage your personal budget for you, pay the money to another organisation, such are a care provider or pay the money directly to you or someone you choose, this is known as a direct payment.

I chose the direct payment option and went through payroll who advertised a PA (support worker) for my daughter. People applied for the job through payroll and then payroll contacted me. I the arrange to meet the PA for an informal interview with myself and my daughter. I offered her the job on the day, which she accepted. My daughter receives 8 hours of support each week, with an additional allowance on top of her personal budget for respite so i can have some extra time to myself.

You must use the personal budget on what's stated in the care plan. What you could receive will depend on how much care and support you need. Sometimes you have to pay a small amount towards the support you have but this will depend on your circumstances.

Hope this helps as it's very difficult to give advice with very little information.

Thanks for your reply. I have had an assessment and I do not need to pay anything towards my care. My friend looks after me and i want to.pay him to continue that. the social worker is coming next week to discuss this. she has not mentioned a personal budget or additional allowance as yet. want to be a bit prepared when she comes. don't know whether to let them sort it or me.

If you chose the direct payment route then you'll need to pay HMRC your PA's tax, you'll also need to produce payslips, receipts, time sheets for hours worked, you'll need a specific insurance for your home because it will become a workplace. All these need to be kept and produced to your local council either every 6 months or yearly. Your direct payments account will them be checked.

The best way to do all of this is through payroll, it's a company that deals with all these type of things and it makes less work for you because each month once they receive the timesheets for your PA they will produce payslips and send you all the information you need to pay your PA and HMRC, when to pay them and how much to pay them. You then pay payroll each month for what they do but all of this comes out of the direct payments.

You'll have a separate bank account for the direct payments to be paid into from your local council, which you can access online. There's a lot to think about and it's not as easy and straight forward as it seems. I deal with my daughters and it's incredibly stressful.

Sometimes i wish i had asked for them to deal with it because the stress drives me crazy at times. I didn't have any advice about how it works or anything from my daughters social worker, it was horrendous. I just had to learn as i went a long, ringing payroll for advice all the time to start with. I'm used to it now but still find it stressful.

The additional allowance my daughter received was a lump sum so that she could go on holiday or day trips etc so that i could have some much needed time for myself. I'm not sure if you would get that.

What ever route you choose, good luck and i hope this advice helps a little.

Thanks for the advice Denise. It'much appreciated. I think I might ask them to sort it all out. Sounds complicated.