What is Self-Directed Support?

 

The Government wants people who need social care support to have more choice and control over their lives and have asked all local authorities to introduce new ways of supporting people. In practice, this means making social care more personalised and giving service users more choice and control over the social care they receive.

 

Self-Directed Support fits within the Government’s ‘Personalisation’ agenda. It is an innovative approach to providing social care to older people and adults with learning disabilities, mental health issues, physical disabilities and sensory impairment. Instead of a package of care being organised by local authorities and its partners, Self-Directed Support gives individuals eligible for social care support more opportunity to identify their own needs and enables them to plan how to meet them with a Personal Budget. Key elements of Self-Directed Support include:

• Individuals identify their own social care needs and personal aspirations

• Eligible individuals given an early indication of funding available to support their needs

• Individuals (with appropriate help) develop a Support Plan showing how their needs will be met

• Individuals (with help if required) decide how services to meet their needs should be arranged. This can be either them managing services through a Direct Payment, having them arranged for them by the Council or a mixture of both.

 

 

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When will Self-Directed Support happen?

 

Self-Directed Support began rolling out across the United Kingdom earlier this year.

 

 

 

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What is the difference between Self-Directed Support and current assessment processes?

 

Under the current process a Care Manager / Social Worker is responsible for completing an assessment of needs and for those eligible, devising a Care Plan showing how their needs will be met. The individual user has limited choice and control in this process. How much the service will cost is normally only known when the Care Plan is put together.

 

Under Self-Directed Support people eligible for social care support identify their own social care support needs and their personal goals, and plan how to meet them with a Personal Budget - an up-front indication of the funding they will be allocated.

 

Individuals complete a Support Questionnaire. This is divided into sections that ask a series of questions that enable the individual to state what their needs are. When the completed Support Questionnaire is validated an indicative budget is generated. (This is called the Resource Allocation System). The individual service user then produces a personal Support Plan listing their support needs, the goals they want to achieve, and how they will spend their Personal Budget to meet their needs. The Support Plan is agreed by the Council and, once agreed, the Personal Budget is finalised and released.

 

 

 

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What is the difference between a Care Plan and a Support Plan?

 

Care Plans mainly concentrate on how services will meet eligible individual’s care and support needs. They tend to be task focused (e.g. need support getting out of bed at 8am). Support Plans are more person centered and whilst covering the above also tell you more about the person, what is important to them and what they want to change in their lives. They also include information about how informal networks and community support can be built-on to meet outcomes.

 

 

 

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What is a Personal Budget?

This is simply the sum of money set aside by a local authority and its partners to meet an individual’s identified and agreed needs. Individuals can choose to take their Personal Budget as a cash payment and manage it themselves, or they can take part or none of their Personal Budget to manage themselves and ask the Council or its partners to manage it for them.

 

 

 

 

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Who can have a Personal Budget?

Anyone who has had an assessment of need and is eligible for services will have a Personal Budget.

What are Direct Payments?

A Direct Payment simply means giving someone an amount of money to arrange and purchase their care and support services themselves, instead of a Care Manager arranging services for them. Individuals may choose to take all their Personal Budget as a Direct Payment, to take part of their budget as a Direct Payment or to take none of their budget as a Direct Payment. Individuals still have to have an assessment to see if they are eligible. A local authority has to offer the choice of taking a Direct Payment to anyone ‘willing and able’ to manage one, with or without help from someone else. Direct Payments are regulated, but have also been around for over 10 years. To find out more about Direct Payments visit our links page.

 

 

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Is Self-Directed Support about saving money?

No. Self-Directed Support has been shown to provide greater choice and control for service users, greater links with their local communities and better outcomes leading to higher levels of satisfaction. Individuals currently using Personal Budgets are tending to use the money more efficiently and/or find they do not require the full budget to meet their needs - a similar outcome to traditional Direct Payments.

 

 

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What can the money be spent on?

Anything that isn’t a health service and isn’t illegal. It could be used to buy support from an agency or to employ someone’s help. For example if they wanted to individuals could use it to pay someone to do their ironing or to tidy their garden. It could also be used to buy equipment, for example specialised computer programmes, needed to meet the support and goals specified in the individual’s Support Plan.  

 

 

 

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How will the role of Care Managers and Social Workers change under Self-Directed Support?

 

Care Managers

 

Care Managers will continue to have an important role in relation to Self Directed Support:

• assessing whether individuals are eligible for services

• validating Support Questionnaires

• working out individual allocations of funding

• managing risk pro-actively

• checking that individuals produce good Support Plans

• monitoring and reviewing Support Plans

• helping those who request it to produce Support Plans

• helping people to find the relevant services

Social Workers

 

It has been said that Self-Directed Support will mark a return to ‘old fashioned social work’ - with an emphasis on advocacy, support and enabling people rather than financial control and rationing access to services. It will allow Social Workers to provide more support to those individuals least able to direct their own support, and enable greater scope to work innovatively and creatively with individuals needing support. 

 

 

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What is Brokerage?

Brokerage is a function designed specifically to help individuals gain access to the social care and support services they need. If a person is employed specifically to only do this they may be called a ‘Broker’.

 

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How can I find out more about Self-Directed Support?

You can find more information about Personalisation and Self-Directed Support by visiting our links page.

 

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