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We are proposing to make changes to our Home Care Services
Charging Policy and we asked you to give us your views.
Proposed changes
There are five proposed changes. What we are proposing is
to:
- Increase the percentage of available income that is taken into
account to work out a person's charge, from 65 to 85 percent
- Instead of a standard cost, use the actual cost of providing
Home Care Services to work out what a person should pay
- From September this year, make sure that no-one pays more than
an extra £15 per week on top of their present charge, if they are
receiving Home Care Services and have been assessed as having to
pay towards the cost of their services. This is called a
'cap'.
- Keep the £15 per week cap in place for up to three years, if it
applies
- Keep the Disability Related Expenditure Assessment (DREA) at
£20 per week for everyone.
Tell us what you think
If you currently receive Home Care Services, act on behalf of
someone who receives services or represent a user or carer group,
then you will have received a letter from us detailing the proposed
changes.
We produced a questionnaire so that you could tell us whether
you agree or disagree with the five proposals for change.
The consultation period has now ended. You can view the results
from the consultation in the
Consultation Analysis Report.
Why do we need to make changes?
We need to make some changes to our policy because it is costing
us more to provide Home Care Services as the number of older and
disabled people increases. We think it is really important to
continue providing Home Care Services to the people who need them
so that they can stay independent in their own homes for as long as
they choose. This is why we have decided to continue providing
services to people with moderate needs as well as to those with
substantial and critical needs. However, to be able to do this we
have to increase our charges.
For this year only, the charge that you currently pay for Home
Care Services did not change in April. This is because we want to
use the time from May to July 2007 to get your views on the changes
that we propose to make to our Charging Policy from September
2007.
Who will be affected?
If you do not pay anything at the moment you will continue to
not pay anything unless your income increases.
If you pay towards the cost of your services, you will be affected
if the new charges are approved. For those people whose new weekly
charge will go up by more than £15 in September 2007, we propose to
put in place a cap of £15 per week, as we did last year.
We will keep this maximum cap of £15 per week in place for next
year if, following the usual re-assessment in April 2008, any
further increase is more than £15 per week on top of the charge
from September 2007.
We will also keep this cap in place for one more year if,
following the usual re-assessment in April 2009, any further
increase is more than £15 per week on top of the charge from April
2008. We have included examples in the questionnaire to show how
the cap may work.
Contact us
The Contact Centre helpline on freephone 0800 298 6002 can
answer your queries about the consultation, or alternatively you
can email
social.services@kent.gov.uk. |