FAQs

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What are direct payments?

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People who get help from social services can apply to receive direct payments for their care needs. These payments let you choose and buy the services you need, instead of getting them directly from your council.

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What types of clients do you work with?

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We provide Direct Payment and Personal Budget support services to a diverse range of clients and understand the need to be flexible to respond to their individual needs. For example we have large clients on managed accounts who can employ many Personal Assistants, on variable hours and a variety of regular payroll runs. We also have many smaller clients who employ just one Personal Assistant on fixed hours paid every four weeks.

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How is your service tailor-made to suit the needs of individual clients?

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We like to gain an understanding with new clients about the best way to work with them as we recognise that a one size fits all approach simply doesn’t work. We offer alternative methods of communication to cater for service users with visual or hearing impairments. We also accept instruction from a suitable person acting on your behalf if you prefer. We are happy to respond in whatever way we can in order to make the process as easy and effective as possible.

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What fraud prevention measures do you take?

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We work in partnership with the Local Authority to carry out identification checks to comply with Money Laundering Regulations. We also liaise with local authorities if we believe an account is at risk of being misused. We adopt a ‘firm but fair’ approach to make sure budgets are spent correctly.

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What are Personal Health Budgets?

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A personal health budget is a sum of money which allows you to manage your health and wellbeing needs.  You can use it to pay for treatments, personal care or specialist equipment that has been agreed between you and your local NHS team.