Pensioners To Fund More Care Costs In Council Charge Review

The care packages of 9,000 people in Stoke-on-Trent are being reviewed after a new charging policy was approved. Stoke-on-Trent City Council is looking again at its home and day care services to try to make them more efficient and better suited to patients' needs. The review will see if the care packages are adequate and that residents are being charged fairly.

The package of measures – first revealed by The Sentinel in April – has been approved by the council's cabinet. But the review will lead to well-off residents who can afford to pay all their home care costs paying the full amount instead of their current 80 per cent. And day care users – who currently make a modest contribution towards transport and meal costs – will be charged up to £48 a day for the service. The changes are expected to generate about £133,000-a-year more for the council.

The shake-up is part of a wider national strategy to personalise care by giving patients money to buy the services they need themselves, without relying on a council.

Conservative and Independent Alliance councillor, Hazel Lyth, the cabinet member for adult social care, said: "This two-year plan is going to alter the way social care is delivered in the city. "This is about giving residents the opportunity to receive direct payments to spend on their own choice of care. "We also need to start charging for day care under a fair-payment scheme and stop providing financial support, through subsidies, for individuals who are able to pay.

"We need to be fair and equitable in our charging policy and treat people as individuals." Some cabinet members have warned that direct payments would be too much for more vulnerable residents and that some people would lose out under the new charging scheme. Labour councillor Sarah Hill, cabinet member for transformation, pictured below, said: "I'm concerned that some other authorities have insisted people go along this route.

"We need to ensure that people have a choice about whether to receive direct payments and that it's in their best interests to do that." She added: "Charging for care services is a very difficult policy to get right. It could take up quite a lot of people's income and we have to be careful about how we manage this." Mark Palethorpe, the council's departing head of adult services and partnerships, said the authority would take steps to ensure that only patients who could afford to pay for their care would be charged more.

He said: "It is about making sure we have a service that is fit for purpose but is also equitable. "The idea is to give people greater choice and control, but with that comes greater responsibility and we need to manage that effectively."