'Peer brokers' help other care-users manage their own services

People managing long-term conditions are being trained to support others find care – reducing councils' social care bills

The personalisation agenda in social care has always been assumed good by the current government, but it can only be good if a balance is found to avoid social isolation. Equally, the move to give more people who receive social care services a personal health budget can only be good if those people know where the best services are to be found, and without adding to the cost.

While social care received a relative boost in the spending review back in June, but we should not forget that the budget has been cut 20% since 2010. On top of this, critics have called out the government for proposing an unreasonably high bar for eligibility, which runs the risk of cutting people in need out of the system.

One proven method to address all of these problems in social care, and find that right balance, is the peer-support model. This way of working saves money without selling short on efficiency and quality. People managing long-term conditions, and those who support them, are trained and accredited to help others to plan, find and manage their own care and support.

As chief executive of social enterprise MySupportBroker (MSB), I have seen councils across the country working with our peer-broker model already making savings, while improving the care services that people receive.

We make savings by facilitating support planning, offering training, investing in local communities and evaluating impact. Ever since the introduction of personal health budgets the Department of Health has been keen to ensure recipients enjoy equal access to funds and the best services for them. Bringing that to fruition, peer brokers bring with them years of experience in finding solutions for people with disabilities, long-term illnesses, dementia and other conditions.

MSB peers make use of free services in the local community, engage personal assistants as part of a customer-care plan, rather than higher-cost residential institutions, ensure the use of a personal budget as a direct payment rather than a managed service, and use innovative technology to link broker, customer and council together for the first time.

Through our social impact reports, as well as external and independent reporting, we are able to identify and evaluate the impact our work is having on local communities. Our analysis of a sample of 100 care plans created for councils, for example, including Enfield, Southwark and Walsall Councils, has shown a reduction in the cost of support planning to just 2.5% of the cost of a personal budget. This is a dramatic reduction when you consider that 40% of the government's overall social care spend of £20bn goes solely into the bureaucracy of delivering it, as shown in a recent NHS Information Centre report.

Getting the right resources to people who need social care services is not easy. Without thetraining and rigorous quality assurance we use as standard at MSB, it would be impossible to get the quality outcomes that councils rightly demand for their service users.

Another important aspect of a peer broker's role is to significantly reduce social isolation and increase local participation. On the back of this, it was found that 97% of MSB customers took up active self-directing of their own support services through their personal budget.

The unit cost of a highly personalised MSB plan is significantly lower, too. According to the Audit Commission, the cost per head of social care assessment services to a council is at around the £800 mark. But in the analysis of costs to the councils MSB currently works with unit costs at £300.

Recent attention to adult social care is certainly welcome, but the key test for councils is to make the best use of existing resources in local communities.

Sinéad Brophy is chief executive of My Support Broker

Read the original article here on the Guardian website
 

Sinéad Brophy