Direct payments let you choose and buy the care and support you need. Your social worker will talk to you about how they work and ask you if you want to use them.

With traditional care package if you want to make a change to the services you get, you need to request that change from us. Direct payments allow you to make that change yourself. This gives you the benefit of:

• flexibility over setting up your own care
• control, choice and independence

Any changes you make must meet your identified needs and be within your budget.

You can pay for a range of services to meet your social care needs identified in your support plan. Services include:

• personal assistants to help with daily tasks like appointments or social activities
• home based care to help with tasks like bathing, dressing, feeding
• short breaks
• life skills and education sessions
• social and community activities

You can search Connect to Support Surrey for services in your area.

If you decide to use direct payments, you can get them:

• through a prepaid account
• paid into your back account – you will need to set up a separate account

We recommend a prepaid account. This is easier to manage as you:

• don't need to keep receipts and separate records of your spending (unless you pay by cash)
• can nominate a trusted person to help you to manage the account if you need help with this

We will check your spending, usually every 3 months.

Surrey Independent Living Charity (SILC) offer information and advice on using direct payments. If you agree to a direct payment, we will refer you to SILC.

Find out more at SILC direct payment support.