Charging for Adult Social Care Telecare - Consultation

Southend-on-Sea City Council would like to have your views on proposals to make changes to the way it charges for customers who are using the telecare monitoring service via adult social care, and to bring this to one standardised service offer for residents of Southend-on-Sea.

We are therefore asking Adult Social Care Telecare clients, carers, people employed in health and social care along with the wider public to comment on this proposal to include charging for the Telecare Monitoring Service under the adult social care charging policy.

The reason Southend-on-Sea City Council want to do this:

• To bring charging arrangements up to date with the guidance on charging set out in the Care Act 2014.
• To consider charging for services that the law says the Council are allowed to charge for, but that are currently provided for free.
• To bring this into one service offer – one stop shop.

The Council continues to face pressure on resources and seeks to make the best use of funds available to support all care requirements. We continue to be committed to providing a wide range of services to as many people as possible. If we do not bring the Telecare Monitoring service into one chargeable offer, then we may have to consider reducing the level of services we currently provide and the number of people we are able to support with these services.

This consultation is one of a number that the council will be running over the coming weeks, as it seeks to deal with the current financial challenges by saving millions of pounds and setting a realistic and balanced budget for 2024/25 and beyond. Read our webpage for more information on the council’s financial challenges.

How does the Telecare service currently work?

The Telecare devices enable people to call for assistance when they have a problem. Some equipment generates automatic alerts in the event of a particular issue arising such as a fall. These calls or alerts are passed straight through to a call monitoring service run by South Essex Homes, where trained staff can talk to the Telecare clients and establish what is needed. If assistance is required following a call, some users have family or friends or neighbours who can be contacted, emergency services can be contacted also if appropriate.

Currently most people have a service directly with South Essex Homes which they pay for themselves, a smaller amount of people have a service provided by Southend-on-Sea City Council social care team which people do not pay for themselves.

What changes are proposed?

Southend-on-Sea City Council are proposing to bring the Telecare Monitoring service into one standardised offer and to introduce charging for the Telecare Service which Adult Social Care Telecare clients receive under the adult social care charging policy.

The consultation will close at 5pm on 26th January 2024.

Any consultation responses received after this date will not be included.