Carers break personal budgets

After you have spoken to Adult Social Care and chosen to have a Carer's Assessment, you may be offered support to take a break. This could be replacement care, respite, temporary replacement care, or a carer's break. 

Who is a carer?

A carer is someone who provides unpaid care and support to a family member, friend, partner or neighbour who could not manage without their help. This includes people who receive Carer's Allowance.

The person you look after may have: a disability or learning disability, a long term or life limiting illness, mental health difficulties, alcohol or drug related problems.

Local support for carers

Newcastle Carers support adults, children and young people who care for someone living in Newcastle. This is a free, confidential service for carers of all ages.

Read more about more local support for carers.

Carers Assessment

A carers assessment gives you the chance to tell us about your caring role and how it impacts your life. You may be able to get practical and financial support to help you in your caring role from Adult Social Care. To receive support you must be:

• providing unpaid care to someone who couldn't manage with your support
• at risk of a deterioration to your physical or mental health

Contact us at Adult Social CarePoint for a chat or fill in our online form. We can work with you to understand your situation and find local support that works for you.

If you are not eligible for support from the council we will give you information about other services that can help.

What is eligibility?

The Care Act sets out the criteria to decide if you can receive support or money from Adult Social Care at Newcastle City Council. It’s described as having ‘eligible care needs’ or that you are ‘eligible’ for support if you meet this criteria. This is decided when you have a Needs Assessment. 

Read more about eligibility.

Replacement care

To give you a break from your caring role, you may be offered replacement care, to look after the adult you care for. This would be part of their care package. 

The person you care you will need a financial assessment to find out if they can get support from Adult Social Care. They may have to pay towards their care costs. They must agree with this. If they lack capacity to make decisions, it must be in their best interests for their care and support needs.

Other types of care

If replacement care is not suitable, Adult Social Care will support you to consider:

• respite care
• temporary replacement care
• a carer break

We do not financially assess or charge carers for replacement care delivered in this way.

Read the Easy Read guide to Carers break personal budgets

How a Carers Break personal budget is arranged

We talk to you about your caring situation, to help us to identify what might help. For example, we look at the amount of support already in place for the adult you care for. The amount and type of care you provide. The impact your caring role has on your health and wellbeing. 

After this we work out how much money you will receive as your personal budget. A carer break personal budget is not means tested or counted as income by the Department for Work and Pensions if you claim benefits.

How do you receive your budget?

When your budget is agreed we arrange your personal budget to be paid to you as a direct payment or the council can manage it on your behalf. 

Your personal budget is paid for 12 months and starts from the date that the money is put into your bank account. A review or reassessment of your needs as a carer must be completed before you can receive another personal budget. 

All carers who are offered a carer break personal budget have their needs reviewed every 12 months. This is to check if your needs or your caring situation has changed. 

What can I use my Carer Break Personal Budget for?

You will agree with your social worker how you're going to use your Carer Break Personal Budget. This agreement is part of:

• your Support Plan: if you have had a separate Carers Assessment
• the Combined Care and Support Plan of the person you care for

Your Carer Break Personal Budget can be used to support you as a carer. This includes:

• Respite Care: The person you are care for can stay in a care home to give you a total break from your caring role. They must agree with this or if they lack capacity to make decisions, it must be in their best interests. The number of days they stay will be agreed. 
• Short term, temporary replacement care in your own home. This is when a care service is employed to look after the person you care for. You could use this time to go out for a couple of hours or for the day. It can include overnight care and support,so you can have a break away from home.  You cannot use your direct payment to pay relatives or friends to provide this type of care unless they are legally employed as a paid care worker to do so.
• Part or the full cost of a break for you and the person you are caring for to go away together for a day or more. This includes reasonable expenses such as the cost of your: travel, rail fares, flights, petrol, car hire, costs, meals (if they are not already included in the overall cost of your break), the hire of mobility aids such as a portable hoist, or wheelchair. It does not include paying for refreshments or meals out on day trips
• Part or the full cost of a break for you to go away for a day or more. This includes reasonable expenses such as the cost of your: travel, rail fares, flights, petrol, car hire, costs, meals (if they are not already included in the overall cost of your break.  It does not include paying for refreshments or meals out on day trips

What you must to do

When you get a Carer's Personal Budget you must follow this guidance. If you don't, we may not be able to offer you another carer break personal budget in the future.

Open or use a separate bank account for your carers break personal budget. This is to keep everything separate from your day-to-day expenses. We will need to see bank statements and we don’t want to look at your personal account unless we have to

Keep to what you and the social worker have agreed your carers break personal budget can be spent on

Talk to your social worker and get their written agreement, if you want to use your carer’s break personal budget differently to what is in your support plan. Any request for change may mean a review of the joint care and support plan or your support plan to make sure your needs and the needs of the person you are caring for are still being met

Keep receipts for everything you buy with your carers break personal budget. These must be printed receipts that show the: date, company or person name and address, details of the purchase made or used. Handwritten receipts cannot be accepted

Send the receipts to the Direct Payments Finance Officers when they ask for them. This is usually once a year, for audit purposes.

Tell us if you think you may not be able to carry on caring for someone. For example, if you become unwell or experience your own health problems

Tell us if your caring role changes or stops. For example, if the person you are caring for goes into residential care

Give the Council back any money that has been spent on goods or services that were not agreed in the joint care and support plan or your support plan

Give the Council back any money you have not spent during the year or if your circumstances change. For example, if the person you look after moves into permanent residential care or dies

After 12 months of receiving a personal budget 

In a year’s time, our Direct Payments Team will check to see how you have used your carer break personal budget. This is called a financial audit. It’s nothing to worry about if you use the money as agreed and keep your receipts.

If you’ve any money left over. Or spent any of your Carer Break Personal Budget on things that weren’t agreed in your support plan: we’ll ask you to pay this back to us. If you don’t pay this back, we may take action to reclaim this.

We’ll review your needs and the needs of person you care for every 12 months. This is called a Social Care Review. This is to agree what support is needed for the next 12 months.

Any problems or worries

If you have any problems, we will work with you to sort them out.

If your problem relates to you or the person you are caring for, you should contact your social worker directly if you have one. If you do not have a social worker, contact Adult Social CarePoint.

If your problem relates to your Carer Break Personal Budget or your audit, call our main switchboard 0191 278 7878 and ask for Direct Payments.