Paying for your care needs

A Direct Payment is money we set aside to pay for your care and support after we've carried out an assessment of your needs.

We can either pay money to you so you can arrange your own care and support, or we can use it to make arrangements for you.

Getting a Direct Payment

You can only have a Direct Payment if you have been assessed by us as needing support to help you to live independently.

The assessment will work out:

• how much your care will cost – your Direct Payment
• if you need help paying for it

If you need care services and are assessed as being able to pay the full cost yourself, then either:

• we may still provide the services for you, but will charge you for the full amount
• we can put you in touch with private care services so you can arrange support with them

If you need care services but cannot pay the full cost of care by yourself, we will agree with you how much you can pay towards the cost, and we'll pay the difference.

Managing your Direct Payment

Once the amount is agreed you can start planning what to do with it.

We'll help you with this by using our experience to agree a plan that meets your support needs. We will also agree with you how you will receive your Direct Payment

You can choose either:

• to have our contribution paid directly to you so you can arrange your own care – called a 'self-managed direct payment'
• to let us use it to arrange care services for you, and charge you for your contribution on a monthly basis – called a 'managed direct payment'

Our full Direct Payments policy and guidelines are provided below.

Contact us

Contact our Thurrock First team to ask about the different types of Direct Payments.