Direct payments are local trust payments available for anyone who has been assessed as needing help from social services. You can normally get them if you are a carer aged 16 or over.
Direct payments can be used to buy services from an organisation or to employ somebody to provide assistance. As a carer, you can use a direct payment to purchase the services you are assessed as needing to support you in your caring role.
This includes support that may help maintain your health and well-being. For example, driving lessons or a holiday so you can have time to yourself. If you are assessed as needing domestic help, you may ask for a direct payment and buy the support services you need.
Direct payments -money from the local trust to pay for care services - are not the same as Direct Payment. Direct payment is pensions and benefits paid directly into an account.
You cannot use direct payments to buy services for the person you care for. They can only be spent on getting the support you, as a carer, have been assessed as needing.
You also cannot use direct payments to secure a service from your spouse or civil partner, close relatives or anyone who lives in the same household as you - unless that person is someone who you have specifically recruited to be a live-in employee. There can be exceptional circumstances, which your local trust may agree with you.
Your local trust has to offer you the option of direct payments in place of the services you currently receive. Under some circumstances you cannot get direct payments. Your local trust will be able to tell you about these.
To get direct payments you will need to contact your local trust to ask them to assess your needs.
Direct payments are also available for people with disabilities who have been assessed as needing help from social services. If you have parental responsibility for a child with disabilities, direct payments that can be used for a variety of services for your child can be made to you.
The amount you receive will depend on the assessment your local trust makes of your needs. Direct payments are made directly into your bank, building society, Post Office or National Savings account.
Direct payments do not affect any other benefits you may be receiving.
If you already get services from your local trust, ask about direct payments. If you are applying for services for the first time, your local trust should discuss the direct payments option with you when they assess your needs.
If the needs of the person you care for change - for better or for worse, in the long or short-term - contact your local trust as soon as possible so that they can reassess the level of payments you require.
Local trusts can review direct payments as children's and families' needs change over time, just as they do when families are receiving services directly from a trust.
The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS) has two information booklets about direct payments. One of them is an easy read version. They both can be downloaded from the DHSSPS website or ordered over the telephone or online.
'A guide to receiving direct payments' is the name of the standard booklet. The easy read booklet is called 'An easy guide to direct payments'.
Caring for someone