Welfare Reform on the Web (October 2004): Social Care - UK - Community Care

DIRECT PAYMENTS: WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS?

Commission for Social Care Inspection

2004

Direct payment is a system whereby people are given the money to choose and pay for their own social care. Report identifies the main barriers to people using direct payment as:

• lack of clear information;
• unnecessary and over-bureaucratic paperwork;
• poor staff awareness of the direct payments option;
• an unwillingness on the part of professionals to surrender control;
• inconsistencies in local practice.

DO THEY LOOK AFTER THEIR OWN? INFORMAL SUPPORT FOR SOUTH ASIAN CARERS

S. Katbamna and others

Health and Social Care in the Community, vol.12, 2004, p 398-406

Paper discusses the sources, quality and quantity of informal support available to carers in the four main South Asian communities in the UK. It suggests that South Asian carers as a group are no more likely than carers from other communities to be assured of support from wider kinship and social networks. It challenges the pervasive assumption that South Asian people live in self-supporting extended families and do not need support from social services. Carers have difficulty in accessing formal support services due to language difficulties and because services on offer may be culturally inappropriate.

PENALTY CHARGE

P. Thomson

Community Care, Aug 26th-Sep 1st 2004, p.32-33

The article looks at findings of research on the impact of new guidance on charging for home care. Research shows that there are still wide variations in charges levied by local authorities. Authorities which calculated the charge of a hypothetical service user charged from nothing to £103.00 per week.