Some thoughts about the problems of personalisation.
1. It far too complicated. There now seem to be several different terms describing more or less the same thing, let people decide what they want and make some money available to enable it to happen. Most people I meet don’t have a clue what all this means or how to go about setting it up.
2. Casting people adrift and just making money available is not helpful. Sometimes service delivery requires some economy of scale in order to be financially viable for providers. There isn’t a system which provides any synergy. Taking money away from the centre following the idealistic dream of setting people free from the system only works for a minority in my view.
3. Personal budgets do not always provide enough money to meet the need properly. If you ask for the Authority to sponsor something and they can find it cheaper you may be under considerable pressure to opt for the cheaper one regardless of quality.
4. Safeguarding – Vulnerable people and families have not always got the wherewithal to cope with managing personal budgets. Personalisation adds more stress and anxiety. Using an independent personal assistant to run your affairs can be effective but there is always a risk of financial impropriety and if employing your own staff there are numerous problems that can arise especially if you employ your own staff.
5. In my view the personalisation idea has been hijacked as a way of saving the State money and moving the responsibility of Care from the State to the individual. In the future, as the Nation apparently struggles to look after it’s own people, I can see available resources shrinking whilst at the same time delegating more and more responsibility away from professional management and oversight onto the individual with the real aim being to ultimately wash their hands of a significant role and rather than pay for care services actually only provide a donation towards the costs, the equivalent of a few coppers in the collecting box.
6. Finally by giving people their own budgets and ‘setting people free’ Authorities are gleefully taking the opportunity to close all their directly owned and managed day centres, clubs and activities so now people have got the money but nowhere to go and worst still nowhere to meeting and associate with others which I actually see as a human rights issue (right to associate).
Rather than empowering people I now see personalisation as an idea that, like total integration, is more of a dream than likely to bear much fruit in the real world. There will be some people who sing the praises of personalisation and I applaud them for making it work. However they will tend to be the more able and well connected families and supporters. It is hard to make a circle of support out of only a social worker and the pet goldfish.
Statutory guidance is vital if we are to take all this forward starting with “Authorities must not use this strategy as a mechanism to save money”.
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