What can you spend Direct Payments on?

[Grace2232]

Does anyone know much about direct payments from local councils?

Can you only buy day care or PAs? Can you buy travel or social activities etc

?

They aren't being much help.

[allofatremor]

No they never are, it is only for care nothing else.

I used the payment for podiatry treatment be cause the GP had stopped providing this service.

I was told I could use the payments for anything that improved the life of the disabled person, I was told a load of rubbish.

I had to pay back £10k, yes! Direct payments are only for the disabled person to employ a care package professionally and family members can not be the paid carer. Be very careful, if I were you I would ask for confirmation of every question and answer you get from them.

Good luckxxx

[Shue Community friend]

Hi, take a look at Sense.org.uk direct payments. They have a section that explains in more detail what the payments can be used for. It's one of those questions you never get a definate answer to, everyone says different things. You could also phone the mencap helpline on 0808 808 1111 they have trained advisors. If you do get answers please post back it would be so useful to many of us. Good luck.

[WhydoIneedaUsername]

I hesitate to say this, because it may be tempting fate, but ...

... as well as care/PA, my son gets payments for a taxi home from college after a weekly Youth Club and also the cost of attending a Care Farm once a month on a Saturday morning.

This began with Child Services but has continued now that he has moved to Adult Services.

Perhaps North Yorkshire County Council are more generous than others

[Tiinaa]

Hi, great that you can get DP.... in my experience, in both both child and adult services, DP can only be used for the things that have been approved by your personal social worker... this will be different for every customer, and personal to the service user.... so every new thing has to be approved before spending. Hope that helps.

[NorthernDad]

There is no national guidelines and it is down to each council to make there own decisions and then it can differ between the social workers and those in charge of monitoring the payments. We had the Social Service Manager saying yes you could use it for that then being rejected by those in charge of the budgets who were in a different department

[-Rich-]

When my son was under the children services our social worker told us we could get direct payments to help towards care costs. At that time we didn't need to use it but now he's an adult we do. However, after funding a few days in the summer for him they will no longer fund anything else.

He has one day off college a week and there is a charity that would take him out, the direct payment would pay for the carers cost and then he would pay anything else. The cost is £90 a day for the carer and it's too much for us to pay ourselves.

It's annoying that each council (this is Herts CC) can decide who does and doesn't get the funding. The charity would've taken him out with several other young adults so it's basically denied him having some form of social life outside of the family.