Personalisation

Supporting Independence in Bromley seeks feedback and suggestions

Supporting Independence in Bromley is how the London Borough of Bromley have branded the Council's transformation of adult social care and the briefings are just one way they are communicating with partners, voluntary and community organisations, BME groups and others about developments. 

Your help in reaching target audiences with the first two briefings and other communications has been invaluable and they would be grateful if you could distribute and display this third briefing wherever possible including in any news letters that you might produce. 

They are still looking for feedback and suggestions about ensuring the communications about Supporting Independence in Bromley is as effective as possible and any comments or views are very welcome. 

Please contact: Amanda Day on 020 8313 4390 or 07947 974358 or email: amanda.day@bromley.gov.uk 

You can find the third Talking about Supporting Independence in Bromley here

Bromley Council talk about Supporting Independence in Bromley

Changing adult social care

You may have heard that major changes are being made to adult social care in Bromley. This is also happening across the UK. The changes will give people who need care and support more choice, control and flexibility over how they live their lives. Bromley Council are calling this programme of change Supporting Independence in Bromley.

This briefing is to answer some of the frequently asked questions about Supporting Independence in Bromley. Over the coming months there will be lots of communications to keep people in touch with what's happening.

You can download the briefing here.

Paradigm announce course summer sale

Training consultancy Paradigm are having their own Summer Sale, where they are discounting their rates right down to £500 per day for their most popular training courses. This offer is open to anyone who books and has their training delivered by 31st August 2009. The courses included in the sale are:

• An introduction to Person Centred Thinking
• Person Centred planning
• Person Centred Risk Assessment
• Supported Decision Making
• Introduction to Supported Living
• Team Building
• An introduction to Self Directed Support

Please call our Paradigm on 0870 0104933 or email admin@paradigm-uk.org to discuss this offer or make a booking.

Visit Paradigm's website

Individual budgets can provide better care, says new report

Individual budgets can give people more choice, flexibility and control over their personal care, as well as a better quality of life, according to a pilot scheme evaluation report launched today by Care Services Minister Phil Hope.

The independent evaluation was conducted by a combined team of five university research units. It found that individual budgets had particular benefits for mental health service users and younger disabled people. While there were no important differences in overall cost (IBs cost on average about £280 compared with £300 for standard mainstream services), there were indications that individual budgets have the potential to offer greater value for money.

Individual budgets give people who have care needs the power to decide the nature of their own support and the report showed that most groups liked this. People can choose to use the money to fund the care that suits them best and fits in with their lifestyle - for example by having someone support them at home rather than going into residential care.

Mental health service users in the individual budget group reported a significantly higher quality of life. Younger physically disabled people were more likely to report higher quality of care, and were more satisfied with the help they received, the choice and control they experienced and felt they had the opportunity to build better quality support networks. People with learning disabilities were more likely to feel that they had control over their daily lives.

However, the report found that older people did not find the individual budget system used during the pilot as easy to use as the other groups, and they did not appear to like the idea of managing their own support. 

Care Services Minister Phil Hope (right) said:

"Individual budgets can put people back in control of their own care, and give them a better quality of life. This report is invaluable in helping us understand the benefits of individual budgets, as well as the action we need to take so that everyone can benefit from them.

"Since this research was undertaken more support has been put in place for older people and early indicators have shown that this has transformed their experiences of using individual budgets. We will conduct further research to investigate the impacts further. We must also get better at letting people know that they don't have to take on management of the budget themselves.

This is a very complex area. We will work to address the recommendations of this report, to make greater choice and control a reality for many more people."

The results of this research will feed into work to introduce pilots of personal budgets for healthcare from 2009, as announced in the NHS Next Stage Review.

As part of the Department of Health's plan to transform social care, the Department announced in late 2007 it would empower people to shape their own lives and the services they receive through personal budgets.

The report can be found at the Department of Health website here

A Call for Evidence!

CSIP are calling on people to provide good practice evidence to support their upcoming Symposium on Self Directed Support and Mental Health.

For more information, please visit the event listing here

BBC to launch "Headroom"

Beginning in May, BBC Headroom is a multi-platform campaign to encourage people to look after their mental wellbeing. It will involve a website, programmes and events over the two year duration of the project.

The Headroom tent will be pitched at festivals across the country, starting with Radio 1 Big Weekend in Kent. The campaign will also be linking in with the National Year of Reading's "Mind and Body" month in May by offering a range of activities in libraries.

Plans include everything from book groups to taster sessions in yoga, relaxation and meditation. The website will be launched on 6th May 2008.

LDC reports on Direct Payments Seminar

The London Development Centre has produced a participant feedback report from their Mental Health and Direct Payments Seminars held in the Autumn of 2007.

Download report as a PDF file