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As lots of you know, the government is engaged in a massive overhaul of the way care that comes out of the community care budget is organised. Known as the ‘personalisation’ or ‘transformation’ agenda, the basic idea is to give beneficiaires a personal budget that they can spend how they want.
It is supposed to be up and running by 2011 and a lot of the initial focus is on older people. However, the principles are supposed to run across all of community care.
What does everyone think about drug users getting their own budget to spend on rehab etc? Is this just according users the same basic respect as anyone else, or madness encouraging relapse as people at the early stages of change are given access to large pots of money that could be spent on drugs?
In reality, there will have to be some sort of mechanism that balances these issues? But what should it be? I can’t find a local authority that has done any work on this yet, but it is to be hoped that the starting point is consultation with user groups?
I think this area is going to get a lot of attention over the next couple of years and am interested in what others think…
Let us know
Russell
hey Russell,
I must admit, I don’t know enough about this new scheme to pass judgement.
But I do have some questions…
I’m assuming that it would not be as simple as drug users being ‘given access to large pots of money that could be spent on drugs’. I would hope that this would not be used as an argument to prevent drug users from having access to treatment funding.
At the moment there are major problems with treatment waiting lists – many drug users lose motivation, or even die, whilst waiting for funding to be secured for treatment.
However, one concern would be that people may use their allotted funding when they may not be ‘ready’ or ‘in the right place’ for treatment.
I would certainly be interested in hearing more about this scheme Russell – can you recommend any where to get information??
Thanks for bringing this to our attention!
Hi Lucie
The main government paper is at: http://www.cpa.org.uk/cpa/putting_people_first.pdf but it doesn’t really mention drug users at this point
Russell
Russel at first glance I really like this idea as it puts the responsibility and power into the person who is sufferings hands. But I would like to see more detail as this is usually where the devil lies.
I would also be concerned given the current postcode lottery of available treatment options.
I will watch with concern and hope however about this development.
Annemarie x
We already have the ‘Direct payment’ sheme in place within Independent Living sector of the care field. There are lots and lots of questions to be asked and answered but surely the intent to give a person the power to choose their treatment is a noble one? As stated in the comment in a previous response the application of this has the potential to turn into a nightmare as the risk of personal injury, even death, to the Service Users it will be earmarked for must and cannot be underestimated.That said there are fantastic examples out in the real world of treatment provision that could be used as a model.
I think this is a great idea. There has been some preliminary work done on this in Oldham and there is an interview on the Lifeline FEAD website with Martin Routledge. Maggie Rogan at Lifeline is well up to speed on this and has been championing personalisation for a while. Unfortunately, I dont have any stories about the use of this in the drugs world yet. But, I heard a good one from elsewhere. There has been a long standing arrangment in our neck of the woods that when carers get respite for 2 weeks the loved one they care for as usually gone to the same residential place that wasnt very popular. This meant that the carers respite break was sometimes a bit spoilt because they knew their loved one was not looking forward to their stay. Anyway, now thanks to personalisation. The person being cared for can use his or her budget to go to Spain for a fortnight with a ful time professional care assistant and the carer gets to have their own break safe in the knowledge that their loved one is having a good time too. And guess what – its cheaper too.
Thanks Mark, just the sort of thing I was looking for, I will have a look at the Martin Routledge interview.
Any more out there?
Russell
“the starting point is consultation with user groups” – imagine that!
I’m not sure what kind of leverage user groups have in the UK, and ‘personalisation’ is a notion that hasn’t surfaced here in Australia [I can, however, imagine the hue and cry that will come from the tabloids at the idea of ‘the undeserving’ being handed a measure of control over their own existence].
Without knowing the details of the proposed scheme, my superficial perspective is that giving people autonomy is an extremely powerful thing, as long as it is accompanied by accessible [rather than mandated] support structures – I don’t think it’s a judgment to acknowledge that people fall down occasionally [a.k.a. lapse/relapse] and that planning for this possibility makes sense – the mechanisms that balance these issues, as Russell states [and Annemarie points out the “postcode lottery” of treatment services, suggesting that personalisation may not be the best option when people are living in a vacuum of support services].
I guess my roundabout point is that I hope that users’ perspectives are taken into account in the rollout of the proposed scheme, since it has the potential to have an enormous impact on how people manage their lives. User groups here in Australia do receive government funding, and do enjoy a [certain] level of consultation on relevant issues, and I guess what tweaked my interest in this blog entry was whether or not user groups in the UK were being consulted in the process of formulating this policy…
So I’m really intrigued about where this is heading, and what other people’s opinions are…
Duncan
