Bid to raise direct payments take-up

Care services minister Liam Byrne has unveiled details of a campaign to increase take-up of direct payments.

He told a conference last week that the campaign would bring together “people who have done [direct payments] well and people who have not”.

The campaign, to be launchedin April, was promised in January’s health and social care white paper.

Byrne revealed that, also in April, older people’s tsar Ian Philp would produce a five-year plan for older people’s services.

After his speech to The Guardian’s Managing New Realities conference, Byrne was challenged by Joan Penrose, a carer of two sons with mental health problems, about cuts to mental health services in her area made to bail out acute trusts.

Byrne replied that trusts in deficitcould not endure “shock therapy” and neighbouring NHS organisations might have to help them out in the short-term – but over time this would stop as financial management improved.