A question about 247 care hours equating to 168 hours per week

[Cakes2695]

Hello,

Does anyone have any information about what happens to the hours not used per week? from adult social care eg for various reasons a person needing support returns back to his/her family home - It could be the person is ill or have mental health issues , care provider loses the service contract, poor care so family has to step in etc.

What happens to the care budget & package ? eg if the person only receives 23 hours support per week what does ASC do with the remaining 145 hours ?

Any advice from anyone in this situation - Has anyone challenged LA or social worker ? it would be helpful to share - we can only claim for 35 hours per week so what happens to the other funds/hours. They aren't paying family members are they ? yet we are doing it all unpaid to support the person we love & care about.

[BenjiB]

I don’t completely understand your post but if a young person is living in supported living or residential care then the fees will be paid to the provider by the LA. If that young person then returns home the fees stop being paid. The money is to pay for services received. The money that was being paid will then just go back into the LA’s budget.

Sadly that’s just the way it. It’s why many of us cannot afford for our young people to live at home.

[Cakes2695 in reply to BenjiB]

Ok thanks, it isn't acceptable for them to do this especially when it's the SW/LA & care companies failing on a grand scale across the country. But I do appreciate your simplistic advice on the situation. It doesn't answer what they are doing with the funds from the government and why the funds aren't helping families continue to care.

[BenjiB in reply to Cakes2695]

the system is broken. I had this conversation with my son’s care manager when he moved to a residential placement in September. The fees are in excess of £5k per WEEK due to his high support needs. . I said to her then that I would be able to care for him at home for half of that by employing my own support workers and building onto the house to accommodate him. However I love where he is and he does a lot more day to day there than I could provide at home. When looking for placements we were continually pushed towards supported living as it’s “cheaper” but it doesn’t have the same stability of residential care. It took over a year of searching and visiting to find the place he is now and there are so many awful places out there.

LA’s are grossly underfunded when it comes to adult social care so when a young person is at hime the LA’s tend to put those people to the back of their minds. Apart from underfunding there is also a huge shortage in care /support workers so even if the money was there there is no one to do the supporting. So the longer answer is there is no money.