Care Providers - staff shortages and what to do

Pinkbutterfly

hi - just wondering what other parents/carers have done in this situation: our daughter with cp will be living independently in what’s now the family home as soon as everything is sorted. We have fantastic carers but need to plan for emergencies etc when these carers can’t cover. We have been looking into Care Providers, but are anxious to retain our existing carers and know that Social Services won’t want to pay ridiculous prices for a Care Provider. However, if we found someone ourselves who could do staff rotas, administration etc, Social Services have not been keen to acknowledge that whoever carries out these tasks needs paying! Is there a cheaper alternative? They don’t want our carers to do it because of a conflict of interest.

forgoodnesssake

This is a really important issue that is almost always overlooked by those paying (Social services/NHS CHC)...we are  having the same sorts of thoughts ourselves in that adult son increasingly wants to be/should be independent of parents but trouble is I do all the admin, payroll, co-ordination etc and in a way he should have an administrator/co-ordinator to do this for him...am going to raise this with funders at some point.

Pinkbutterfly

I have heard that there are ‘service brokers’ but cannot find any when I Google it

forgoodnesssake

Local Authority providers of Direct Payments are obliged to offer the services of a payroll admin service to recipients of DPs and they generally include the cost of that in the overall package.  I have always done all my son's admin and payroll so I have never used the service but I know it is there.  Here they also get that service (provided by a small local disability charity, but can be by a larger outfit like Penderels, or Salvere for the NHS) to do the costing plans.  I know that here they can also help with recruitment, BUT, as far as I am aware they take no part in the actual management of support staff and they are not the employer, and so what I think we may need is more of a "case manager".

Pinkbutterfly

Equal Lives used to hold the supported accounts (DP money) in Norfolk here. Then the Council took the supported accounts and Equal Lives calculated the net pay for the Council. Now the Council have removed that service from Equal Lives, despite the fact that they are going to be making a charge for the service themselves.