Traditionally, people have had packages of support developed for them. Through Individual Budgets, people themselves should be able to choose a variety of services which meet their needs. Whilst choice can be a positive thing, it can also be overwhelming, not to mention time consuming.
The idea behind the development of service packages is that no single organisation is likely to meet all the needs that are identified in a support plan. There is potentially a lot of work involved in an individual (the service user, their carer or a social worker) trying to build a package of support from a variety of different sources. It is conceivable that a number of people would find this overwhelming, and would therefore choose a more traditional, easy-to-arrange package of support.
We would like to explore developing service packages which could include all the different “jigsaw pieces” which would make up a rounded package of support, including
• Different morning and afternoon activities
• Lunch and other refreshments
• Transport
• Accessibility assessment and provision of any mobility aids
• Employment of Personal Assistants or any other required support
• Employment support if deciding to employ a member of staff
It would be important to build packages in a way which allows for them to be customised to meet a person’s specific needs, but we think that this approach could fill a gap between totally free choice and all choices being made for someone.
The detail of how this approach would work will need to be worked upon by all organisations wishing to offer services as part of a package. We will suggest that organisations work intensively on developing the packages (ideally over two days in June), so that these could then be promoted to people from, perhaps, September.
