Please can anyone offer advice how a single occupancy home is run with a single care provider.
Interested to hear if anyone is in the situation or has tried it ?
They will provide 247 care , various shifts provided by 1 care team approx 4/5 staff who will rotate and come on duty to cover these hours.
LA will pay cost of care directly to care team management team.
Any advice would be appreciated, concerned about living costs eg 1 person paying all the bills on benefits but realistically 2 people using facilities. What is acceptable, what isn't under these living arrangements.
Any useful web sites or URL's that offer advice etc .
Thanks
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Hi there. I presume that you are providing the accommodation which means all of those costs nominally fall to your daughter. Ie water , fuel, tv licence , internet etc. The biggest problem however is the fuel bills. See if you can agree with the care provider that they will pay at least half of those bills. They are sky high at the moment snd unlikely to reduce so I feel this is a key area that needs agreement beforehand. Also who provides beds and bedding for staff ? Are they allowed to shower at the property or not ? Where is their food kept ? And how is it separated from your daughters . ? I have two fridges one for staff and one for my son. All foid is labelled as well to help avoid any mix ups. Plus there are separate cupboards for staff food. There’s a few thoughts to be getting on with !
Thank you very useful! Definitely should be shared living costs, they are shared in multiple occupant homes in supported living . So unfair especially when the persons conditions prevents them sharing.
Hi my son lives in supported living with care provided by a chatty. All bills are divided and paid by the 4 people who live there. The care company don’t pay any of it. I looked into my son living alone and soon realised that it was sadly going to work out too expensive Hope that helps. If you have any questions I would be happy to help. p.s my son has lived in supported living for 10 years now.
Hi this is interesting. Who is providing the house, is she a tenant? My son shares with another person and they both have their own tenancy with 24/7 care. They pay all the bills between them, even though there is a member of staff there all the time when one or both are there. The care agency don't contribute at all to any bills and pay a small token towards a meal made. The guys pay for all shopping. Nothing has ever been explained regarding this, it's terrible really.
Hi there my daughter has been in supported living for 8 months, and she is in a single occupancy flat which is part of a complex of 12 flats all receiving their own support from the care company.. The flats are new and built by a private landlord and the care provider is separate.It is sort of half in half ,between a residential home and supported living home in that there is a separate office manned 24/7 . There is also a separate kitchen toilet and shower facilities for staff, this means that they can do their own cooking etc rather than use the residents facilities, gas & electric for their personal use is paid separately from the residents usage.
My daughter is therefore responsible through us ,as she has no capacity, for water, energy activities and food the latter in which we buy from her benefits, which I manage. Additionally each resident has to pay a service charge separately to the owner for upkeep of gardens, windows et c, and any jobs that need doing.
She also gets her housing costs included from Universal Credit and doesn't pay council tax.
My daughter, as do the majority of residents have waking night staff. For those who don't staff bring their own bedding and pillows.
I asked what happens through night regarding heating, as it would be too hot for my daughter to sleep, and as far as know heating not on during the night.
As far as we know heating on 5/6 hours per day and switched off completely when we bring her home. We are also awaiting to have a smart meter provided, We pay £100 per month direct debit for energy at present. Water is via smart meter and as yet only had one bill. The next one due shortly.
There is a TV we provide, we don't need to as my daughter no capacity to understand but we got it for the staff, and for background noise for her.
So far we have comfortably had enough money from her benefits to provide everything she needs and enough over for contingencies and presents. However she is 100% health funded so no extra money taken off her for the fairer charge, so we are luckier than those social funded.
Hope that helps, not perfect as we would prefer her at home, but we are planning for the future.
Look into whether you can get water at 50%. We live in Devon and south west water do a Water Care scheme and she only pays 50% of water.
Also please may I ask who was the company or private landlord that built the development. I know this is the way forward and councils are liking Cluster homes - so everyone has their own private flat but share the care over night etc.
reading through these comments is why we chose residential care for our son rather than supported living. The LA pay his fees and his money, his benefit money (which I manage) is his own as he’s funded by the NHS. Supported living was just too much hassle for me.
Hi BenjiB we initially considered Residential care & looked at a house in our area run by Macintyre care. We had a chat with the owner, and had a look at the setting of 3 houses from the outside due to being during covid. When I mentioned it to the clinical lead for CHC at time she quickly directed us to a new 12 flat complex round the corner from the Macintyre home. We never got opportunity to choose between the two, at that point , and we were quickly directed towards this new build a supported living facility, which is sort of similar to a residential facility in that it has an office manned with staff that are senior care assistants under a manager all are responsible for the management and day to day running of the home.Question for you in residential care if health funded can you keep mobility aspect of PIP and UC but not care component of PIP. What about care allowance? Is there enough left to live on as I assume no bills to pay and most of food provided?
Him he keeps all of his universal credit and mobility part of pip. When he comes home for a week I claim the care component for him for that week. He pays nothing towards his care. All food etc is included. The only thing he pays the home for is mileage when the car is used for him. It’s very expensive though, around £6k per week. This is why parents are pushed towards supported living. It makes my blood boil as some supported living placements are absolutely awful.
We searched for over a year for a place for our son with the help of the placement team at our council. They sent out a pen picture and as providers got in contact we were passed the details and either vetoed it or went and looked. Most were ruled out due to location. The place he is now is beautiful. The staff are lovely, keeping us informed of everything but not bothering us with small stuff.
Great to know that your son's residential home continues to be exactly as you want, and in a beautiful setting. Good to know there are places out there doing the job they are meant to do, hence provide a happy, healthy and secure home for your son. Added bonus they consider the parents as central to his care.
I feel sure long term that is what we are aiming for.
The supported living placement is doing a reasonable job with our daughter, and over the months we are getting to know the care staff as we take our daughter home most weeks. It's the communication of information from senior staff that needs improving. We like to be informed of day to day what is going on and would welcome regular meetings. Don't think they do that sort of thing though. In fact other parents/carers are not coming into the home as much as us.
I communication is definitely key. I dint want to know all the ins and outs, our son has challenging behaviour so there are incidents daily. But I do want to know if it’s serious enough to be reported to his care manager and I want to be involved in all medical decisions. So far they’ve done this which is why we haven’t applied for deputyship.
Having been on the other side and been a care home manager for years, the families were very important when caring for their young people. If they wanted we involved them in care plans snd risks assessments etc. I think because of that I expect the same level of input. My nephew was in a supported living placement and It was awful. He has severe learning disabilities too. So much went on that my sister in law had no idea about and one day they informed her he was moving to another house without any discussion. They said he’d been given all the letters regarding this 🙄. He can’t even read let alone understand what the letters meant. Suffice to say he’s back home now. When clearing his room she was horrified to find it full of damp and it clearly hadn’t been cleaned in months. Again they said they’d discussed it with him and he’d said he didn’t want it cleaned.
I may have missed any clarification but, to me, this sounds like this is little more than a tenancy for the person with a team of carers?
The important distinction here is whether or not the person needing care is a tenant? If they have their own tenancy then it makes a difference.
Someone else has mentioned a differing situation so I will skip the possibility of the accommodation being owned by the care provider.
If this is a tenancy then it falls upon the tenant to cover all of the bills and that does mean all of them. Most likely they will avoid paying council tax and rent if they receive qualifying benefits. Despite the high costs just now I have found with the situation I cover that these bills are not unmanageable on benefits. Indeed, my daughter is some £300 in credit with them!
We are presuming here that the client in question has a self contained property with their own electricity and water meter.
Their bills and benefits management is one of negotiation. If they have an attorney for finance (LPA) and lack capacity then the expectation is that the attorney manages all of the finances for the client. The DWP will likely already have appointed them to manage benefits and many families manage benefits for a NOK simply as a DWP appointee. The client can, if they are able, retain their own management of their income and outgoings.
NOK can request the care provider or the care manager to manage all of their finances or for an advocate to put in to act for them.
In situations where care is provided, the client is expected to pay toward that care and the local authority determines what that figure would be.
I will give my personal experience as follows:
My daughter has borderline capacity, can manage some things, not others. She has a tenancy with a social landlord in a two bedroom flat. There are 4 flats in the building, each run independently. Each flat has a tenant who has needs which require carers. Each is entitled to choose their own carers therefore there can be 4 care providers in the building none of whom are responsible for the flats or the bills.
She receives 24/7 care with 1/1 support so, a carer is always there using electric and so on. They do not pay to use those resources.
Until Tuesday at 5pm I manage the full payments to the care provider via direct payments. After that, another provider will be in place paid directly by social services.
There are different rules depending on whether a client is funded by health or social care. If it is health then the flat itself becomes a hospital for benefit and cost purposes. This means the client loses their DLA/PiP but keeps anything such as Universal Credit or ESA. If they are social funded they keep their DLA/PiP but pay the contribution I mentioned earlier.
I know it doesn't perhaps seem fair that carers get to live free in their clients building but, the same would apply were we to employ a cleaner for where we live, we wouldn't make a salary deduction because they plug in the vacuum cleaner!
Some of what has been written above by myself and others will help but, if you are more specific about who owns the building, whether their is a tenancy involved and so on, we can perhaps answer better.
Sharing of bills generally only applies where more than one resident shares the property.
My daughter has her own flat - rented and I run her care package and she has 1:1 day time and a sleeping night so as you said one person living there but the cost of 2. She doesnt pay council tax anyway so that helps, but on the Fairer Contributions form recently I managed to get £45 a week allowance agreed to cover the cost of food and electric for the staff member on the premises. I guess its still more expensive but we manage with her benefits as she gets enhanced EESA ETC.
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