Direct payments to disabled people must focus on independent living, says guide
Direct payment schemes that enable disabled people to make their own arrangements for personal assistance must be geared to giving them maximum choice and control over their everyday lives, says a new guidebook funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
The manual, prepared by the Policy Studies Institute and the National Centre for Independent Living, offers comprehensive guidance to local authorities implementing the new Community Care (Direct Payments) Act. Written for those who plan, commission and deliver services for disabled people in the community, it describes ways of introducing direct payments that will be effective for local authorities and enabling for their users.
Topics covered include:
- Planning – the guidebook urges authorities to fit direct payments into a wider strategy and policy on independent living, including transport and housing. Plans should be prepared in genuine partnership with users and focus on disabled people taking control of resources.
- Support systems – schemes should ensure that disabled people have access to advice, information and support so they feel confident about using direct payments to employ and manage their own staff. Training for individual users and peer support from other disabled people are among the key elements to be considered.
- Funding – support services must be treated as an integral part of community care and receive adequate funding. The guide provides checklists of the revenue and capital costs that planners should take into account.
- Equal opportunities – direct payments can address previously unmet needs among disabled people from ethnic minorities because they enable better matching between users and their personal assistants. The guide draws on practice lessons from development work in a London Borough.
- Eligibility – the legislation requires eligible users to be ‘willing’ to accept payments instead of a service and ‘able’ to manage the payment, with or without assistance. The guide cautions against assuming that the nature of a person’s impairment will automatically determine their ability to manage payments.
- Assessment –elements of good practice that are described including the use of self-assessment questionnaires. Particular attention is devoted to the crucial process of translating care assessments into direct payment arrangements that deliver the level of personal assistance that is needed.
Frances Hasler, co-director of the British Council of Disabled People and an author of the report said: "Direct payments are about independent living, which means having choice over where and how to live, and having control over who assists you and what they do. They are an important part of the move away from institutionalised provision in residential or day centres and involve a significant shift in the way that personal services are assessed and delivered.
"Successful implementation of the new legislation requires a move further down the road of user involvement than many local authorities have yet taken. Our guidebook draws on the experience of disabled people who already use direct payments, of support service providers and of those who run existing payment schemes to show how the goal of independent living can best be achieved."
