Service user involvement and personal budgets; collecting real- time feedback from service users can improve choice and control through personal budgets

Care Opinion have been invited to an event by Leeds City Council which asks service users: Are personal budgets and direct payments working for you?

The event at The Village Hotel in Headingley is being held to share the 2014 Personal Outcomes Evaluation Tool (POET) survey results. The survey looks at how well personal budgets are working within the city of Leeds, either as a direct payment or as a traditional care package, and the impact they are having on people’s lives.

It is widely accepted that ‘Self-directed support’ should become the mainstream mechanism for the delivery of social care throughout the UK and Personal Budgets are very much part of Adult Social Care’s (ASC) vision to achieve ‘better lives’ for people in Leeds.

‘Self-directed support’ or ‘personalisation’ means that you choose and control what you do with your time, what help you get and from whom.  Anyone aged 18 or over who is eligible for social care support can use this system to get a personal budget and the help that they need. 

Better Lives Leeds are wanting to find out what service users think could be improved on and comments from participants at this event will be fed into a wider national survey and will also help Leeds City Council to take action and give more service users choice and control over their care and support.

This is where Care Opinion and Patient Opinion come in because, although personalisation can help deliver more choice and control, the quality and standards of care still have to be measured. What better way of doing that by encouraging a two way conversations between service users and providers? Particularly, one could argue, as there is an increased element of risk associated with personal budgets, it becomes even more important for providers to self-regulate in a transparent way that further demonstrates their commitment to user led care. 

Direct payments, personal budgets, individual budgets, person centred planning are part of the move towards ‘self directed support’ or ‘personalisation’. If ‘personalisation’ has been a bit of a buzz word that sounds a bit jargonistic then maybe the term ’being able to do the things I want to do’ is something we all better recognise. As a disabled person myself, in receipt of a Direct Payment to use my ‘Personal Budget’ to buy the services that will get me close towards achieving my goals, I still want those delivering the service to do it on my terms.

The pioneer of personal budgets Simon Duffy, a former director of In Control, says the ‘personalisation’ term was probably applied backwards and refers to ideas and practices that were already in place and that the real goal behind personalisation is citizenship. The idea is that services are controlled by the individual and can help us live independently and gain or maintain full and equal citizenship.

However, many disabled people like me and social innovators like Simon are fearful that the level of cuts experienced by local authorities together with the additional pressures faced by disabled people puts the aims of ‘personalisation’ or ‘citizenship’ at risk. This is because there are not enough allocated funds to deliver true independence to take away the barriers placed in front of hundreds of thousands of disabled people.

So for me and my colleagues here at Patient Opinion and Care Opinion, working with ‘Better Lives Leeds’ provides an excellent opportunity for service users and providers to measure peoples experiences of the impact of personal budgets on social care and care provision in general in Leeds.

‘Better Lives for People in Leeds’ demonstrates a commitment to supporting people’s aims and aspirations. The approach towards independent living in Leeds is also demonstrating an integrated approach and looks at how housing and care and support services all deliver something towards people’s independence and wellbeing.

This outcomes-based approach, with the aims and aspirations of an individual at its centre, is currently the best way to receive care as it has at the very least taken us away from the older model of paternalistic dependency towards the model of empowerment and self-determination.

But given the limited funding for Self-Directed Support and Personal Budgets it is vital service users are able to share feedback to guide it’s development and provide a close commentary on the support that delivers choice and control and how this affects an individual’s access to full and equal participation in society.

Whether you’re someone who uses social care or health services, or both, a member of staff or local provider, you have the potential to make a positive difference by sharing your experiences on-line. This may help to improve your own life and the lives of others.

It is great to see that participation events like the POET review are woven into the delivery of personal budgets. Because the one thing Patient Opinion knows is that patients or service users require an acknowledgement and reference about the impact of their feedback and participation. This is an integral part of the participation process where leaders and academics in community development stress the importance of ‘change’ beginning and ending with service users.

Andrew Crooks is the Engagement and Support Officer for Care Opinion

(The views expressed are not necessarily those of Patient Opinion or Care Opinion)