Social Services Charging Policy
Social services charging policy
The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 [SSWBA] and the Code of Practice: Part 4 and 5 Code of Practice (Charging and Financial Assessment) and related regulations, set out requirements for a charging policy. These include:
- Ensure that people are not charged more than it is reasonably practicable for them to pay and must not be charged more than the cost to the authority of providing or arranging the care and support. This means that if the Health Board joint funds a care package, only the PCC cost of the care package will be taken into account when determining a care charge. This also applies to funded nursing care where only the Pembrokeshire County Council cost of a nursing placement is used when determining a care charge.
- Be consistent.
- Be clear and transparent so people know what they will be charged.
- Apply charging equally and minimise anomalies between charging for different types of care and support.
- Be sustainable for local authorities in the long-term.
Pembrokeshire County Council [PCC] will charge for care and support provided to meet needs decided on as part of an assessment. There will also be charges for some early intervention/ prevention services and in some instances administration costs. People who receive care and support are known as service users and those who provide unpaid care to someone else, usually a relative or friend, are known as carers. The main types of care and support provided are:
- Preventative – these services can usually be accessed without an assessment and are mostly provided by voluntary or community organisations.
- Non-Residential – these services include domiciliary (home) care, direct payments, day opportunities, supported living services, respite, short breaks, shared lives, intermediate care and community care beds and reablement.
- Residential – unless specifically mentioned these placements refer to residential or nursing care home placements. These are placements in registered care homes either on a temporary (up to 12 months) or permanent (more than 12 months) basis.
Pembrokeshire County Council will work out how much a person will need to pay (contribution) towards the cost of their care using financial information provided by that person or their financial representative. There are specific regulations relating to how we treat different types of income, assets, savings and expenses. There is more information on this in the Financial Assessments section.