Support planning in practice

Introduction

This project aimed to analyse the various models of ‘independent’ support planning available to people using personal budgets (PB users), and to find what types of support planning worked best for older people.

Examples of key findings were that:

• people using personal budgets needed both social workers and user led organisations to help them plan for their support;
• personal budget users were drawing on a wide range of community resources – but these urgently needed coordination;
• family carers had multiple roles, which often became blurred;
• it was not enough simply to provide a person-centred approach to support planning – personal budget users also needed the finances to be calculated correctly and transparently;
• personal budget users and their family carers wanted more clarity about their own responsibilities in managing the budget, and about the support available.