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Consultation
This is a place where you can find out about official consultations that are relevant to disabled people who employ our own Personal Assistants (PAs). Let us know about others.
Blue Badge Scheme review
The Blue Badge Scheme is under review – as this scheme is being misused it is important to contribute. You need to fill in the form on http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/open/2010-20/ you will need to copy the form and email it to bbes@dft.gsi.gov.uk - unfortunately there is no facility to do it on line.LGBT social care issues
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) wants to make sure that all communities know about the new Personalisation agenda in social care, and all have access to it. EHRC is doing a series of pilot studies into this issue. In the North West they have asked a partnership of groups to look specifically at Personalisation for people from Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender communities (LGB&T). Please answer Merseyside Disability Federation’s short questionnaire: http://tinyurl.com/MDF-EHRC
Consultation: Care Quality Commission Equality
and Human Rights Scheme
Please find below a link to the latest consultation document, outlining proposals
for the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) Equality and Human Rights Scheme.
http://www.cqc.org.uk/getinvolved/consultations/equalityandhumanrightsscheme.cfm
The Department of Health has launched a consultation on making direct payments in health care, promising tighter regulations on their use than in social care.
Direct payments are due to be introduced under the current Health Bill, with pilots expected to run from 2010-12, as part of a wider pilot programme on introducing personal budgets to the health service to increase choice and control for patients.
More restrictive regulations
The proposed regulations show there will be more restrictions in the use of direct payments than in social care. PCTs would have to carry out a Criminal Records Bureau check on anyone employed by a patient to care for them who is not a friend or family member of the patient, or a member of their household, and tell the patient the results.
There is no such obligation on councils in relation to people hired by adult direct payment users so long as they possess capacity.
The consultation - Direct payments for health care - http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_107451.pdf - does not say directly that the recipient would be barred from hiring anyone whose CRB check indicates a problem.
Warning over workforce limitations
But Jeremy Cooper, director of public service consultancy iMPOWER, which has been involved in the personal health budgets pilot programme, warned: "Potentially it could really limit the people you are getting in the workforce."
Patients would also face tougher requirements in relation to providing information to PCTs than face social care service users in relation to councils in areas including spending and changes in their health conditions, the consultation document said.
It said primary care trusts should set local policies on what direct payments could be spent on, but suggests a number of examples including: a course of physiotherapy or hydrotherapy for people suffering from long-term chronic pain; an air conditioner for someone suffering respiratory conditions, or complementary therapies, such as acupuncture.
Personal health budgets
Direct payments are one of three ways in which personal health budgets will be tested, as part of the pilot programme, the others being:-
• a notional budget held by a commissioner,
such as the patient's doctor or primary care trust.
• a budget managed on the individual’s behalf by a third party,
like a charity.
Trusts are already able to offer the first two options, which do not involve giving money directly to individuals, but direct payments would only become legally allowable with the passage of the Health Bill.
The proposals come days before extensions to the range of social care users who are eligible for direct payments. From 9 November, councils must offer them to people who lack capacity and those subject to mental health legislation, apart from under certain conditions.
Courtesy of Community Care Magazine
