Fund Counselling Through Using Personalisation Monies

Right to Control Trailblazer Project

If you live in Manchester, Trafford, Bury, Oldham or Stockport then you will have or acquire very shortly the Right to Control if you receive or could be entitled to receive:

• Access to Work
• Adult Social Care
• Disabled Facilities Grant
• Supporting People or
• Work Choice

If you exercise your "Right to Control" then you will be able to find out what budget you have been allocated to receive services and can potentially negotiate to receive the same or different services from other providers such as Lighthouse Counselling. We appreciate that this is a complex area and will impact on your whole support package and not just counselling but it represents an exciting opportunity for you to know more about what resources you have been allocated and be able to take more control of what services you get, from whom and how you receive them. For more information on Right to Control then we recommend visiting http://www.breakthrough-uk.co.uk/OurWork/righttocontrol

Breakthrough UK are managing the trailblazer project and are funded to support you in exploring your options under right to control and advocating on your behalf if this is needed.

Individual Budgets

Even if you are not in an area where you have the full "Right to Control" or choose not to exercise it if you are an individual budget holder then you may be able to negotiate with social services for some counselling to be funded through these provisions. Please feel free to speak to us if you have any questions about this. It may also be appropriate to use DLA care monies to help fund counselling if the money is not being used to meet your immediate care needs.

Access to Work

Even without using your Right to Control (if you are in one of the 5 test areas) you may be able if you are in paid employment able to use Access to Work to fund Counselling or other similar support in enabling you to meet your access needs in work. There are occasions in which this has been granted although it is far from certain that they will accept your claim. This is only available to people who meet Access to Work's disability criteria but this can include mental health. We would recommend seeing if you can access an Employee Assistance Programme through your employer before exploring this option.

Personal Health Budget

Personal Health Budgets are being trialled in many areas of the UK at the moment for different aspects of health services. In the Greater Manchester area this is relevant for Manchester PCT, Oldham PCT, Stockport PCT and Ashton, Leigh and Wigan PCT. Here is a diagram from the Department of Health to explain how this works. It does not take into account Right to Control which increases the different funding that can come together but is still a helpful visual aide.

Although there are ways in which a Health Budget can be combined with a Personal Budget it cannot be "topped up" by private contributions so if you had the budget for say 5 counselling sessions you could get as many more as you wanted but they would be billed and invoiced separately so that they were not seen as part of the same pay-ment.

What this means is that if you are entitled to counselling through your GP or other services for which counselling would be seen as a legitimate alternative then you could potentially use a Personal Health budget to receive conselling from us instead and you would have the option to top this up with extra sessions funded separately if you felt this was needed.  To find out if you can use a personal health budget to fund counselling you could go to your doctor, explain your needs and find out what services are available to you.  You can then ask whether the services are being provided by services that are in a sector that is covered by a Personal Health Budget trial area.  If it is then you can ask your doctor if you would be entitled to be allocated a Personal Health Budget and to secure the services you need from the private sector (such as Lighthouse).  There are two big advantages for you in doing this a) you get to receive the counselling you need from the person you want to receive it from and b) you will not need to wait nearly as long as you might need to wait to receive NHS funded services.

As with Right to Control we are happy to discuss, advise and support you to explore these options if you are interested and to signpost you to independent organisations who can give you further advice and information on these matters. This is a very new area but represents a way in which you could have more power, knowledge and control of the money that is spent to meet your health needs. If you have any experience of using a health budget then we would be very interested in receiving any feedback you have.

See this website for more information http://www.personalhealthbudgets.dh.gov.uk/About/

All this may seem complex but we can talk you through it so you can quickly and easily see if this is an option worth exploring for you.