Direct payments
If you have been assessed as needing social services, we can give you a cash sum to buy services yourself.
Direct payments gives you the flexibility to buy the care and support you need. You have control to arrange your own care.
What you can use direct payments for
- Employ your own support worker or personal assistant
- Pay a care agency to provide support to you
- Pay for support to attend college or go to work
- Buy your own short break in a residential care home of your choice
- Buy equipment that you need for your care and support (such as a particular wheelchair)
- You can only spend your direct payment on support that you have been assessed as needing
What you cannot use direct payments for?
- Clothes, food and savings
- Permanent residential care
- Buying support from community, health and social care
- Employing someone who lives in the same home as you, unless there are special reasons for doing so
How do you get direct payments?
If you are already getting care and support through community, health and social care, then contact your social worker or contact the Direct Payments Team.
If you are not getting care and support, then you should contact social services and ask for an assessment of your needs.
What else do you need to think about?
Before you get direct payments, you will need to discuss
- how you will use the money to meet your needs
- whether you will need to make a contribution to the cost of your support
- how you will manage your direct payment
- what happens in an emergency
- whether you want to employ staff and what your legal responsibilities will be as an employer
- how you will record what you are spending the direct payment on
You can talk to your social worker or to SUGGEST in Salford (a voluntary group of people receiving direct payments) about all these issues. SUGGEST in Salford will be able to help you with some of these on a longer term basis. The group can offer you independent advice and support about direct payments.
You will also need to open a bank account just for your direct payments.
Direct Payments Team
SUGGEST in Salford
Salford Innovation Forum
Frederick Road
SALFORD
M6 6FP
Telephone: 0161-743 3592
Email: office@suggest.org.uk
Downloadable documents
If you are unable to view documents of these types, our downloads page provides links to viewing software.
This page was last updated on 19 January 2010
Email this page to a friend
Bookmark this page using:
Find out more about social bookmarking.
These sites allow you to store, tag and share links across the internet. You can share these links both with friends and people with similar interests. You can also access your links from any computer you happen to be using.
If you come across a page on our site that you find interesting and want to save for future reference or share it with other people, simply click on one of these links to add to your list.
All of these sites are free to use but do require you to register. Once you have registered you can begin bookmarking. Each of the sites works slightly differently so use the links below to find out which service best suits your needs.
Find out more about social bookmarking at Wikipedia.
