Personal Budgets is an exciting new initiative that aims to transform the way social care services are delivered.
Personal Budgets are now offered to adults receiving services from Bath And North East Somerset Adult Care teams, Sensory Team, Community Mental Health Services Learning Difficulties Team
Personal Budgets are not currently offered to Adults in the following settings: Extra Care Housing; Long term residential or nursing placements; Short term respite (with no other social care support) and Intermediate Care.
Personal Budgets are designed to help people to take control of their own social care budgets, manage their support and choose the services that suit them best. They put the user at the centre of the planning process, and recognise that they are best placed to understand their own needs.
If after a Community Care Assessment, or an assessment from a Mental Health professional, you are eligible for social care support, you will be allocated a sum of money to meet your support needs for the year.
A Personal Budget will allow you to have more control over the way your support and care is organised. You will have greater choice about the organisations and individuals who you can ask to support you.
You can also have more say over exactly what they do and when they do it.
There are three ways of organising and paying for your assistance and support:
a) Personal Budgets / Direct Payment (PB/DP)
If you want to manage your support yourself, you can receive the money as a Direct Payment. You will then be responsible for paying the people who are assisting you and will have control over your arrangements. You will need to open a separate bank account for the PB money to be paid into.
b) Using an Agent/ Managed PB Direct Payment
If you do not want the responsibility of managing your own support, you can arrange for your Personal Budget to be paid to someone else who can manage it on your behalf. This person is called your Agent and can be a family member, a solicitor, professionals from a Direct Payment support services, a friend or group of friends. There are also a number of independent organisations who can act for you in this way.
c) Support organised by Social Services
You can ask Social Services to organise your support for you. However, Social Services can only organise support from their own services or from organisations and agencies they have contracts with. The choice of organisation you can use is therefore more limited. Social Services cannot employ individuals on your behalf.