A guide to Putting People First - self-directed support and personal budgets for people in York

What is Putting People First?

Putting People First (PPF) is a national programme to improve people's experience of adult social care. Launched in 2007, Putting People First is a commitment to make sure anyone who needs care and support can exercise choice and control to live their lives as they want.

PPF puts people at the heart of the decision-making process. It enables them to identify their needs and make choices about their support. It's all about delivering high quality services tailored to individuals' wishes, and ensuring better health and well being for everyone, including families and carers.

The Putting People First initiative is made up of four key components. These are:

• Universal services: ensuring that anyone requires care and support can find the services they need in their community
• Preventative services: helping people to maintain their health and well being for longer
• Choice and control: giving people as much control as they want over decisions which affect their care
• Building social capital: recognising that individuals can receive care and support from their friends, families, neighbours and community groups

Putting People First proposes that all local authorities move to a system of personal budgets for anyone who is eligible for support. Through this system, Putting People First aims to help individuals create tailor made care services, enabling them to receive the right care and support at the right time. It also seeks to reduce the pressure on local authorities by investing money in prevention, rather than offering care when people's needs are highest.

What is Personalisation?

Personalisation is an important part of Putting People First. At some point most people will need extra support to live a full and active life, or they will know or support someone who does. We provide this support. Personalisation is about making sure that when this support is needed, people are able to live as they wish, confident that services are of high quality, are safe and promote their own individual needs for independence, well-being and dignity.

Why are we personalising our services?

In Britain our older population is increasing, and people are living longer with more complex health and social care needs. We are all starting to have higher expectations of what we want out of life, and the services we expect to receive. The current system of social care simply won't be able to cope with this increase in demand and something has to change. We have to provide better services, to more people, for less money.

Personalisation will mean:

• services are easier to access, with good clear information, advice and support available for everyone
• long-term well being and independence are promoted to enable people to stay in their own homes
• services are co-ordinated, flexible and readily available when help is needed
• services will be of good quality and there will be a wider range of options so that people have more choice and a better quality of life
• everyone who is eligible for social care will have access to a personal budget and know what money they have to plan their support
• people will have control over the way the money is spent, so they can plan their own lives
• people will receive as much support as they need to manage the money and decide how best they can live their lives

The changes made by Personalisation cover lots of services. They come under four main areas:

What is a personal budget?

Personal budgets are a new way of giving you control over your care and support. This is what is commonly known as "self-directed support". This lets you plan how you want your social care and support managed. It gives you more choice and control over the support you need. You have the choice to be more involved in deciding what support is arranged, and who is going to do what. It gives you the opportunity for more flexibility with your social care funding.

We are committed to supporting all our residents to stay healthy and actively involved in community life for as long as possible. Where this is not possible, we want people to retain the best quality of life they can.

If you need help with ongoing personal care and support, we can help by working out with you what your individual needs are and calculating the approximate cost of meeting those needs. We will then give you your personal budget, which you can spend on meeting your care and support needs in a way that is appropriate and agreed by us.

Who can have a personal budget?

Provided you are eligible for support from us, anyone over the age of eighteen with care and support needs may qualify for a personal budget, for example if:

• you have a disability
• you have an age related illness or impairment
• you have mental health difficulties

This is subject to an assessment of your needs and your individual financial circumstances.

Who will help me with this process?

We will assist you to assess your needs. You may also choose to involve family and friends, or an independent or voluntary organisation in your assessment

How will it be different from what I get now?

In the past we offered people a 'menu' of social care services. But self-directed support gives you direct control over your social care. You have the choice to be more involved in deciding how you arrange your support to meet your own individual requirements.

What we will do

Your personal budget will be identified following an assessment of your needs and a financial assessment. You will have to agree with us how you wish to spend your personal budget to meet your assessed care and support needs.

We can offer you help in the following ways:

• By helping you assess your needs
• Helping you to plan how you will be supported
• By signposting you to other areas of support
• By putting your support plan into action
• Reviewing and changing the plan to suit your own individual needs

Where else can I get money?

Your personal budget from the us may only make up part of your total overall budget. An individual budget is money that you may get from other sources including Supporting People, Telecare and the Independent Living Fund. Your care manager will help you with this.

How we will do things in the future

This is the model that City of York Council will be using from 2 August 2010.

• You and your carer can complete your own personal needs questionnaire, supported by a care manager.
• Part of this assessment will include a Resource Allocation System (RAS) questionnaire. Through this set of questions you will be allocated points, depending on the things you need, and each point is worth a certain amount of money. 
• You will have an idea of exactly how much money your allocation might be, right from the start.
• We will then help you come up with a support plan, which will focus on how you want to live your life, and make sure you can achieve those goals.
• Your support plan will also take into account the needs of your carers.
• This support plan will take into account natural support from family and friends, and things that are available to you in your community. 
• This will then lead to an actual budget, which will be enough to pay for paid support to meet the your needs and achieve the goals set out in your support plan.
• This budget is called a personal budget .

The following may help to simplify the process:

The seven steps of self-directed support?

In addition to us there are a number of local organisations that may help you complete these seven steps - so you don't have to do it alone. You can also ask family members or friends for help as well.

Step 1 - Identify your needs

You complete a personal needs questionnaire, with help if you wish, about the impact your disability, illness or impairment is having on your life. You will also fill out a financial assessment.

Step 2 - Find out your indicative personal budget

We do the sums based on your answers in the personal needs questionnaire and financial assessment. You are then told the amount of your indicative personal budget, this is our estimate of the cost of the care and support you may need and how much (if anything) the we will contribute towards it.

Step 3 - Plan your support

You draw up a support plan, with the help of others if you wish. This plan looks at what you want to change in your life and what you want to stay the same. It explains how you will spend your personal budget in a way that makes sense to you and how you will be supported. You need to decide on the right support for yourself before you can use your personal budget.

Step 4 - Get your support plan agreed

If you are entitled to funding from us, we have to agree your support plan - the amount of support you have identified that you need and the cost of this support. Once this is done you will receive your personal budget. If you are using your own money, we will not need to agree your support plan.

Step 5 - Take control of your personal budget

You look after or take as much control as you want over the money in your personal budget. There are different ways of doing this to suit everyone.

Step 6 - Arrange your support

You spend your personal budget on the support you need as outlined in your support plan. You will receive lots of help to identify the support that offers you the best deal and provides you with the most appropriate support. You can select and set up your own support or ask others to do it if you prefer. You will be encouraged to do this yourself if you feel you are able, to give you maximum control over your life.

Step 7 - Review

At a set time(s) of the year, a social worker/care manager will visit you to check that your personal budget is working for you and discuss what, if anything, you want to do next or need to change.

Where can I get further information?

Your care manager will be able to discuss this in more detail with you or you can contact us.

You can also email enquiries to mylifemychoice@york.gov.uk