Submitted by Daniel Mapp on Tue, 02/11/2010 - 17:15
Westminster LINk and Westminster Community Network held a joint event on 06 October to introduce personalisation, and to explain how it would affect local people and voluntary organisations.
Presentation on personalisation in Westminster
Hugh Cole, Head of Commissioning for Personalisation started the Workshop by telling participants what personalisation means, and then went on to describe what had been done about it in Westminster, and what was planned for the future.
Download Hugh Cole’s presentation on personalisation in Westminster
What does personalisation mean for service users?
Maryam Zonouzi, Director of the Coalition for Independent Living then described what ‘personalisation’ meant in practice for service users.
Visit the website for the Coalition for Independent Living
Some questions for the voluntary sector
Bernard Collier, Chief Executive of Voluntary Action Westminster, spoke about what voluntary and community organisations needed to do to prepare for users with personal budgets.
Download notes on how the voluntary sector can prepare for personal budgets
Notes of questions and answers
Questions to the speakers covered means testing, how much money people would have, whether you could pay family members amongst many other topics.
Download notes from the question and answer session
Main points from small group discussions
Service users wanted more information about personalisation and how it would affect them. There was some concern about how vulnerable people would be affected by personalisation. Service providers wanted to see co-operation between organisations, but cautioned of any race to push down the cost of services.