Message from the Norfolk Charging Reference Group
The Charging Reference Group which includes Equal Lives, Family Voice, Disability Network Norfolk Group, Making it Real, Carers Voice and the Autism Partnership Board representatives have been working with Norfolk County Council (NCC) to inform how the Social Care Charging Policy works in practice.
We want to strengthen the evidence that we give to Norfolk County Council so that it carries more weight.
We are asking you to share your stories, where they relate to 4 areas we’re focussing on.
The 4 areas are:
- The Financial Assessment Policy and Process – the connection to Care Planning, the experience of it (we think it’s important that the two policies and processes are joined up, transparent, and easy to be at the center of)
- Debt Management Advice – if you are not able to pay social care charges (we think it’s important to access independent advice, the policy says it needs to be “reasonably practicable” for you to pay)
- The Level of Minimum Income Guarantee (the personal impact of the level that is set at on you)– for example living with the income you have, how that relates to what is in your care plan, rising fixed costs (we know that costs are going up massively, we know that social care needs much more funding, we need some recent stories to say what this looks like right now)
- Regular Feedback – your experience of getting things sorted if it’s not right, sharing your feedback (we think it’s important that we can easily talk to NCC about how things are going, good and bad, and not just through a complaints procedure)
If you are willing to share your story, please let us know. You can do this by emailing: esmee@socially-adept.co.uk
We will then be in contact to talk about how we would like to use your story (ethics, data protection, confidentiality, and so on) and work with you to produce it. Esmee Wilcox, who facilitates the Charging Reference Group and has experience in this type of work, will help make this happen.
We’re doing this phase of work in June and July. If you are interested, please get in touch during June to take it forward.
