Choosing your care and support

You can choose services which best suit your needs, so you're in control of your care and support.

To help you choose your care and support, we'll:

• assess your social care needs
• work out the cost of helping you

We can also:

• let you know if we can help with paying for care
• agree an amount of money we'll pay (your 'personal budget')

Your support plan

We'll ask you to tell us about:

• the things you want to change in your life
• the things you want to stay the same
• how you'll use your personal budget to make these things happen

We'll record this information in your 'support plan'. If you choose to write the plan yourself, you can ask a friend or family member to help you.

We'll need to agree your support plan before you can receive any personal budget payments.

Direct payments

If you receive your personal budget as a 'direct payment':

• you can make your own care and support arrangements, or
• we can help you find high quality and good value services
• you'll have control over how the money is used to help you
• the money can only be spent on things agreed in your support plan

If you prefer, someone else can manage your support arrangements and direct payments on your behalf, but you'll need to agree this with us first.

See a list of advice and support providers who you can use direct payments to make care arrangements with.

Ongoing support with direct payments

We'll be in regular contact to make sure your direct payments are working for you.

You can tell us about:

• any problems you may be having
• any changes you'd like to make

Join our support provider list

Apply to be on our support provider list if your organisation can offer advice and support to people using direct payments to pay for care.

Check our 'Specification for support providers' guidelines before submitting your application.

Also see

• Adult social care
• Getting adult social care
• Residential care
• Paying for care
• Support with transport
• Live Well York