How You Can Change Home Care Providers

Caremark Thanet: Excellence in domiciliary care

If you receive home care through Social Services, you probably had little involvement with how your home care provider was chosen. Everything would have been done for you, and there’s not too much wrong with that so long as you are happy with the service that you are being provided with.  You may, however, have decided that it is time to change your current home care provider, and you can do this very easily by getting direct payments from Social Services. 

Under normal circumstances, you have a right to receive direct payments. All you have to do is ask; indeed, you should be informed that you have the right to receive direct payments when you have a Social Services assessment. For more information; go to this page. 

If you are receiving care through Social Services, you will have been awarded a personal budget. (For more information on personal budgets, go to this article.) When you have a direct payment, your personal budget is paid to you. This allows you to choose the home care provider that you want to provide your care. If you do not want to take on the responsibility of the direct payments, you can allow someone else (a relative or friend) to do this for you. 

Direct payments work in a very straightforward way. Kent County Council pay an amount of money into your bank account or onto a Kent Card. The Kent Card is a Visa debit card and you can find out more details here. You then use this money to buy your care from a provider of your choice.

Direct payments put you in control. If you should like further advice about direct payments, or, indeed, any aspect of domiciliary care, please do not hesitate to contact me. My contact details appear below.

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet, a domiciliary care provider with offices in Margate, Kent. Caremark Thanet provides home care services throughout the Isle of Thanet. Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet.