update on Care options

[Cakes2695]

Hello All

Update on my request to be part of my daughters care team being her personal assistant /Direct payments, using mixed payment option eg care provider and me.

The LA & Care team they have proposed advised that they wanted all the care hours - Reason the social worker rejected it :

Difficult to use more than one type of support e.g agency and a PA in this situation. It can get very difficult with using different agencies or PA’s for one person as all work differently and will have different policies and protocols to implement – this could become confusing.

Anyone else agree ? Seems fairly weak, as it's only me and then the care team. I'm going to be training them ? so it's done how my daughter needs it done. Feel like the care team are being greedy. Also they often don't deliver all the hours that are agreed.

EG person requiring support goes to parents at the weekend stays 48 hours its a regular occurrence family is important. LA just pay for None delivery is that what your LA is doing ? cost could be over £500 plus ... for them not doing anything.

** Has anyone agreed the exact hours the care team are needed for ** eg could be Mon- Fri then family take over? This isn't for money its just to be with family & Friends social aspect etc.

Let me know .. i'm truly fed up with all the confusion & waste - Why would anyone pay for services that are not delivered ?? it's dishonest & greedy and could be put to better use.

[supermum1997]

When I had Direct Payments but used a care agency I had an agreement whereby they only bill me for hours worked , as long as they had at least 7 days notice that my daughter would be with me, so they could redistibute the staff. In this day and age they should have no problem with this as they are all so short staffed. So no hours claimed that were undelivered. However due to lots of reasons mainly extremely good staff very unhappy with care company but wanting to stay working with my daughter I broke away and now run it all myself with them all on contracts for various hours and they work as a team covering each other for sickness or holiday and I have one senior who submits hours to the payroll company and does rota etc so apart from make the actual payments to them and HMRC at end of month I dont get involved. Payroll do all the working of tax, sick pay , holiday pay etc and just send me a payslip.

[colleenfred in reply to supermum1997]

Hi I was interested to read that you were able to break away from using a poor care company but were able to then employ their staff. Were there any issues with clauses in your contract with the care company about employing and using their staff? I have looked at this with regard to employing someone who currently is with a care agency but is looking to leave and continue to support my daughter as a PA employed by me. However, there are high costs involved due to there being clauses in my contract with care company about employing a member of their staff if they left. I think it is something up to 6 months after they leave.

[colleenfred]

Hi

sorry to hear you are having difficulties trying to sort out care for your daughter.

I have Direct Payments for my daughter and I use both a PA for some days and a care agency for others. This has worked fine for a while now and there are no issues with differing policies,protocols etc so I agree with you that it is a weak excuse and not really valid.

If the PA or the carer from the agency don't work then they don't get paid.

I get invoices from the care agency for the hours worked and pay only for those hours.

For the PA I keep a record of the hours and it goes through a payroll company. So there isn't an issue with paying for hours that are not actually worked.

Can I just ask what is the £500 plus costs for None Delivery? I haven't come across this when dealing with LA.

[Cakes2695 in reply to colleenfred]

Thank you for this reply it is very useful - The 500 is an estimate about the charging of under used /delivered hours by care teams. They are being paid direct by local authorities. Eg Daughter has a 168 hours set by LA but she wants to come home on weekends from friday to sunday night etc . So they don't need to fund the hours . She also doesn't need a support worker for 2 of her activities it would be over bearing for her. So we want to have an actual contracted rota -

[colleenfred in reply to Cakes2695]

Thanks for the prompt reply. It does seem a very inefficient way to provide care with the care team getting all that money for nothing basically.

[Cakes2695]

It's so wrong on all levels and this is why the money is being wasted. Just imagine all the help they could offer others if it was managed correctly, where else can you claim for hours you haven't worked ?? Other than the LA !! I only get paid what i work for ...

[colleenfred in reply to Cakes2695]

It's not right, no. I don't know what can be done from our level. It's something that needs an overhaul from above.