Direct Payments and the Right to Choose Your Care

To Be Human Is to Choose

A very big part of what it is to be human is that you are able to make choices. And as a very wise person once wrote: even not choosing is a choice. Given that making choices is central to your humanity, is it any wonder that you are angry when you denied your right to choose. Joel Feinberg was an American philosopher. He stated that when you are subjected to paternalistic interference - interference that restricts your freedom to choose -  you feel “…violated, invaded, belittled”.

Your Right to Choose Your Care Provider

There are some decisions in life that you have to make that are just so important that your freedom to choose should not be interfered with. That is not to say that you should not seek advice; indeed, that would in many cases be a sensible thing to do. Choosing your care provider, for example, is one of those decisions. Quite rightly, you will feel violated, invaded and belittled if your right to choose is denied.

The good news is that you do have a right to choose who provides your care. This is a right that should not be interfered with. This right to choose exists whether you are funding your own care or you are wholly or partly funded by social services. 

Direct Payments

A direct payment is a payment of money from social services directly to you that you will use to meet your care needs. If you qualify for help with funding from social services you will be given a personal budget. The idea behind personal budgets is to give you greater control over how your care needs are met. 

If you qualify for support from social services and are allocated a personal budget and you do not fall into a small category of persons (people with certain court orders against them) who are not entitled to direct payments, then, under the Care Act 2014, social services have a duty to provide you with a direct payment where you have requested this. 

It Is your Responsibility to Request Direct Payments

Direct payments are all about choice and putting you in control. It is very important to realise that you must request a direct payment. Social services are required to have in place "clear and swift" processes to deal with such requests. Because it is all about choice, you do not have to have a direct payment. You are free to choose. Indeed, if you choose to have a direct payment and decide after a time that it is not for you, changing your mind is perfectly fine. You cannot be forced to have a direct payment. The idea behind direct payments is to enable and empower you. To force direct payments on you would do precisely the opposite.

Direct payments are good news. There is no-one who knows your needs better that you do. You go through life making your decisions, why should it be any different when it comes to choosing something so intimate and personal as care and support. 

To repeat the point, making choices is a big part of what it is to be a human being.

01843 235910 : 01304 892448

www.caremark.co.uk/thanet : www.caremark.co.uk/dover

thanet@caremark.co.uk : dover@caremark.co.uk

01843 235910 : 01304 892448

www.caremark.co.uk/thanet : www.caremark.co.uk/dover

thanet@caremark.co.uk : dover@caremark.co.uk

You Have a Choice: How to Choose the Care Provider You Want

 

Making Choices with Caremark

Are You Happy with The Care Provider That Was Chosen for You?

If you are receiving home care that is funded wholly or partially through social services you have a right to choose your home care provider. There is nothing wrong with allowing social services to set up everything for you. However, you may feel that you want the independence and autonomy that comes with choosing your own provider.

How to Choose Your Care Provider

It is very simple. If you want to choose your own provider the first thing to do is ask for a direct payment. If you have qualified for social services funding, you will have been allocated a personal budget. Having a direct payment means that your personal budget is paid directly to you. This allows you to deal directly with the home care provider of your choice. For more information about direct payments, go to this article.

With a small number of exceptions, you have a right to a direct payment. 

The law is very clear about this. With a small number of exceptions, you have a right to a direct payment. Section 31 of the Care Act 2014 says that if you request a direct payment, the Local Authority to which the request is made “must” make the payment to you. In an Act of Parliament, the word “must” used in this context means that a duty is imposed on a body or bodies, in this case Local Authorities. Where there is a duty imposed on a body there is usually a right granted to another allowing enforcement of that duty. In this case you have the right to a direct payment that is enforceable against the Local Authority.

Choosing Your Home Care Provider

Once you have a direct payment, you can go about choosing your home care provider. You cannot use you direct payment for just anything. It must be used to pay for goods and services that meet your care needs. You can, however, choose your home care provider. The people who carry out your care needs assessment and financial assessment  may wish to advise you about providers ans they may suggest that you go with one of the Local Authority providers: but the choice is yours. 

There is plenty of information available about home care providers in your area. A very useful website is www.homecare.co.uk. This site has a search facility that allows you to type in your postcode and it will return home care providers within a chosen distance of that post code.

The people who carry out your care needs assessment and financial assessment  may wish to advise you about providers, they may suggest that you go with one of the Local Authority providers: but the choice is yours. 

I have written quite extensively about choosing home care providers. You will find this article very helpful.  If you are looking for live-in care, take a look at this article.

To Summarise...

...very simply: you have a choice.

01843 235910 : 01304 892448

www.caremark.co.uk/thanet : www.caremark.co.uk/dover

thanet@caremark.co.uk : dover@caremark.co.uk

Our Homes Are Where Our Pets Are

A Caremark live in carer and help you look after your pets

It’s interesting that a comparison of the strength of our attachment to our homes is made with the attachment that we have to our pets. The strong bond that we have with our pets is another powerful reason why people choose live in care. Research conducted by the charity Blue Cross suggests that

Two thirds of UK older pet owners said they would be ‘devastated’ if they had to give up their pet to go into care.

The social isolation of the elderly and vulnerable is one contemporary of Britain’s great challenges. Many pet owners would say you are never alone with a pet, and there is some pretty weighty research to back this up.  A recent report from Mars Petcare and the Human Animal Bond Research Institute (HABRI) says

There is increasing evidence pets can play an important role in helping people feel less lonely and more socially connected.

To make the point again, pet owners would not need to be told that.

There is a further point to make on the issue of social isolation. Pet owners tend to be more sociable. More accurately, our pets make us more sociable. If you are a pet owner, you will know exactly what this means. Pet owners in general have something in common with other pet owners. More specifically, dog owners have something in common with dog owners; cat owners with cat owners. Lifelong friendships have been known to have been forged because of pets. This is what a piece of American research had to say:

Pets make people more sociable. As noted above, loneliness can be dire; isolation raises the risk of heart disease by 29% and stroke by 32%. An analysis of 70 studies featuring 3.4 million people found that people suffering social isolation had a 30% greater risk of dying in the next seven years. But 65% of the aging pet owners in the new survey claimed that their animals connected them with other people.”

If you speak with almost any pet owner, she will tell you about how her non-human companion helps relieve stress. Pet owners will each have their personal stories to tell; however, you can bet that quite a few will tell you about how their pets make them laugh, keep their blood pressure low and keep their hearts healthy.

For various reasons when we get older, we may feel that our lives lack meaning.  A life without meaning can be devastating for our well-being. Our pets can give meaning to our lives. To quote again from the American research mentioned above:

Pets help seniors stick to a routine. More than half (62%) of the surveyed seniors said that caring for their critters helped them keep a routine, and 73% said their pets provided a sense of purpose.

These are just a few reasons why our pets – and our homes – are good for us. Our pets and our homes – two things to which our emotional attachments are so strong. Is it any wonder that we do not want to abandon either? 

01843 235910 : 01304 892448

www.caremark.co.uk/thanet : www.caremark.co.uk/dover

thanet@caremark.co.uk : dover@caremark.co.uk