Independent Living Service

Age UK Cheshire
Barbers Lane
Northwich
CW8 1DT
United Kingdom

Email: triage@disabilitypositive.org
Telephone: 03333 660107

Our Independent Living Service is established to help you remain at home, with the right support, for as long as you wish. We offer fully impartial and independent information, advice and support for anyone 65 and over, living in Cheshire West and Chester, who have to fund their care privately and have been assessed by the local authority as having a need for care and support. All our referrals come via the local authority and will be processed via our partner agency Disability Positive.

Our team is small but effective, we have Laura who is the Coordinator for the team, Jackie who is one of our Advisors and Cyrine who is our Administrator and Review officer. During the time you are supported by us you may have contact with the whole team as we all work part time.

Our team operates between 9am and 5pm Monday to Friday and there will always be someone on hand to support via on main phone line on 08450 531313 or you can email on brokerwest@ageukcheshire.org.uk

Support for people funding their own care - Sourcing for care

We support people who are paying for care themselves and have been assessed by the local authority as having a need for care and support. We are a well-established and professional team who have access to all agencies across the Cheshire West area and can assist you with arranging care via an agency. We offer a swift, professional and entirely impartial provision that seeks to help you remain at home with support that suits your needs. We can support with sourcing daily visits, 24 hour care, live in care and night support as well as signposting for companionship services.

Support for people funding their own care - Support to access respite

As an Independent Living Service, we recognise that sometimes more support is needed to allow family and friends to have a break and for you to have a more intensive level of support, in light of this we can support with accessing respite in a care home that is suited to your assessed needs.

Support with your direct payment

We can support clients who have been assessed as being eligible for a direct payment from the local authority, this may be a personal direct payment for a person who needs care and support or could be a carers direct payment for a family member or friend who has a caring role. A direct payment is an allocation of money from the local authority for you to access support, this may be via an agency or through the employment of a personal assistant.

The amount you receive will depend on your individual needs and the assessment of your social worker, as part of this process you will also be assessed financially to see if you have to pay a contribution towards the money allocated to you.

Agency support with your direct payment

If you would like to use your direct payment to access agency support the local authority currently pay £14.56 per hour so if you wished to use a private agency you would need to ‘top up’ the difference in cost. For example, if the agency charge £25 per hour, you would need to top up £10.44 for every hour you have with them so you need to feel confident that you are able to afford the cost of the care.

Personal Assistant recruitment with your direct payment

If you wish to use your direct payment to allow you to have support from a personal assistant on an employed or self-employed basis we can support with this. For many this is an excellent option to have continuity of carers and we will walk you through the process to ensure that the requirements of the direct payment are met and that you feel confident in taking on this role of the employer.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/bp-assets/globalassets/cheshire/icons/ILA-information.pdf