PB meeting 6th May Agenda - your ideas needed

The next PB peer support group meeting will be on 6th May from 1.30-3.30 at the Lighthouse.

At the meeting there will be two items on the agenda:
1. Headline Feedback to the Council about issues Personal Budget users are having (see below)
2. Working with the Council to solve these issues.

At the PB meeting on the 30th March, we started think about what the issues are - we did this by thinking "what is the problem?" and "why is it a problem?" (see below for some issues that people have brought up). These are some of the things that group members came up with (including some things that individuals have been raising with the PB team). If you have any issue that you would brought to the council's attention please get in touch with Martha (pbadmin@adkc.org.uk) or Jenny (pbsupport@adkc.org.uk) or call us on 020 8960 8888.

A couple of ideas that came up were-

 

Disabled people still don't have clear guidance around uses of PB

This is a problem because:

1 People don't know about the innovative ways of using PBs

2 Some people have used their PBs for wrong things, then have had to pay back the money

3 People have been told they can only use their PB for care, when this is not the only way

4 People who have been using PBs for a while are now being told they can't use their PBs in the same way

 

There is not going to be an increase in PB amounts

This is a problem because:

1 Agencies tend to put their rates up

2 There is an increase in employer's National Insurance contributions

3 Some people are already using the cheapest agencies / cannot decrease their Personal Assistant's hourly rate so will have to reduce the amount of care they get

4 This is taking away people's choice and control

5 Agencies don't really negotiated the prices for people with small care packages

 

People don't understand how the money is allocated

This is a problem because:

1 People can't see how all there needs are being taken account of

2 People compare themselves with other people in "the same" position and find that they are getting less

3 People are getting different figures everytime they do a new SAQ / have a review

4 People don't know what the amount is supposed to cover.

 

I am sure that you can add a few more "headlines" and reasons!!

 

On the 6th we will be looking at these and discussing

1. what the council can do

2. what we (local disabled people / the PB group / ADKC) can do to address these issues!