Page 5 - TLAP Beyond Direct Payments

INTRODUCTION
When social policy historians look back on the period of social policy that began in 2007 with Putting People First and which is sometimes called ‘personalisation’ they might well ask:
“I understand why more people chose ‘direct payments’ and organised all their care and support themselves. But why didn’t more organisations change and start offering people the personalised support they wanted? Why did older people, disabled people and families feel all the extra work made it too hard an option for them?”
This is the question that inspired this paper. We hope to show that the health and social care system is missing a trick. There are many ways people can get the help they need, without doing all the work themselves. There are some good examples of alternative practice scattered throughout England (and good practice outside England from which we should learn). But it continues to be too limited. The message from the service system to older people, disabled people and families remains too often:
“Let us t you into one of the services we’ve already organised and funded, or if you want something different, more suited to your needs, you can do everything yourself and take a direct payment.”
Too often it seems like we’ve turned personalisation into a burden on the backs of people and families who have already got more than enough to cope with.
“There is a widespread perception that ‘real’ personalisation means supported direct payments, with the person having to act as employer and co-ordinator of their support.” (Hatton, 2013)
Beyond Direct Payments
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