Taking control of care: new projects

• Pilot a fully managed direct payments account service
• Home from hospital project
• Older people’s personal budget ‘taster’ project
• Dementia in-reach service
• Supporting the development of personal assistants from Black and Ethnic Minority (BME) communities
• Personal budget services consortium – supporting local entrepreneurs
• Further information

Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council is using its status as a Local Innovation Award winner to develop new innovative projects. The projects are being developed through discussions with citizens and service users.

Trafford is inviting councils to work alongside them as the projects are set up and implemented, as part of their learning and support offer. This would be beneficial to authorities that:

• are carrying out similar projects and have experiences to share
• wish to learn from Trafford’s experience before developing their own approaches.

The key projects that Trafford is working on include:

Pilot a fully managed direct payments account service

This pilot project will tackle concerns from citizens and carers that managing personal budgets through direct payments is bureaucratic and burdensome. There are concerns that more vulnerable service users will be excluded from the increased choice and control that self-directed support delivers.

This is because they would not be able to self-manage a direct payment and may not have support from a friend or family member to manage the payments on their behalf.

The response from Trafford has been to review direct payment systems and processes to ensure that they are straightforward and user friendly. There is a range of brokerage in place along with accounting and payroll support. The fully managed account service will be piloted with a number of service users and a range of providers - it is expected to go live in November 2010.

Home from hospital project

The aim of this project is to prevent first admissions and re-admissions to hospital by providing support and practical help following discharge from hospital. The project is linked to the Primary Care Trust’s (PCT) work on falls prevention.

The ‘home from hospital’ service will liaise with hospital discharge teams, social workers, patients and families to ensure that vulnerable patients who are medically fit for discharge are able to return home with the appropriate arrangements and relevant support. It will also explore innovative ways of reducing hospital admissions or first admissions.

This is one of the longer developments, starting in November 2010 and running until November 2011.

Older people’s personal budget ‘taster’ project

This project aims to identify people who have refused a personal budget or accepted a virtual budget through social work teams in Trafford. The council recognises that some people may feel nervous about taking on a full personal budget and instead are offering the option of a one-off ‘taster’ budget of up to £250.

The project will provide up to 150 older people with a ‘taster’ of managing personal budgets. As well as helping individuals meet their needs it will help increase practitioners' knowledge of personal budgets and creative approaches.

There is a strong element of brokerage in the project, using existing networks and resources. The project will be set up and training delivered in the lead up to the launch date in October 2010.

Dementia in-reach service

The project will focus on people with early onset or moderate dementia who live in residential care in Trafford. Seven residential care homes are taking part in the project, supported by Age Concern. Volunteering is a strong part of the project and activities include cognitive stimulation and therapeutic activities. The overall aim is to promote health and wellbeing, independence, choice and control.

Quality of life measures will be used at the beginning and end of the project to evidence changes and demonstrate the cost effectiveness of the project. A specification for the service is currently being drawn up.

Supporting the development of personal assistants from Black and Ethnic Minority (BME) communities

Joint work with Trafford BME Service Improvement Partnerships identified the need to further develop the BME personal assistant workforce. This will make personal budgets a meaningful option for some people from the diverse communities within Trafford. It will offer increased employment choices to people from BME communities. The programme is due to start in October 2010.

Personal budget services consortium – supporting local entrepreneurs

Trafford has a strong track record in market stimulation; this was identified as a strength in the Local Innovation Award evaluation process. Discussions with local citizens have identified the need for further development to create a thriving market place for personal budget holders.

Development focuses on a consortium of micro enterprises based on a hub and spoke model. A third sector organisation will provide the hub - or back office - to be run as a social enterprise. The spokes will be small businesses providing services with a mixed market of private business and social enterprises. The hub will manage bookings, invoicing, marketing and other activities, so that small local enterprises can offer their services directly to personal budget holders.

The hub will be commissioned by November 2011 with the project planned to be up and running by April 2011.

Further information

The results from the projects mentioned above will be shared on this website - visit regularly to keep up to date with developments.

If you are interested in Trafford’s projects and their learning and support offer and would like to discuss further, contact:

Local Government Improvement and Development

Hilary Tanner, Improvement Manager
Tel: 020 7296 6566
Email: Hilary.Tanner@local.gov.uk

Trafford Council

Riz Hafezji, Putting People First Project Manager
Email: Ridhwaan.Hafezji@trafford.gov.uk