What is an Individual Service Fund?
An Individual Service Fund or ISF is a type of Personal Budget. It is one way of managing a personal budget, where someone who needs care and support (and/or their family, advocate, or carer) chooses an organisation to manage the budget on their behalf and works with them to plan care and support services and activities that will help them to achieve their identified outcomes.
This arrangement requires more flexible contracting between commissioning authorities and providers, and person-centred support planning to use personal budgets creatively to meet an individual’s needs and outcomes. The budget could come from social care, health (NHS) or the individual, and will be based on their eligible needs. ISFs give people the choice and control over their support, without having to manage the money themselves.
The ISF is an account managed by a third party with support in line with the persons wishes. It is an arrangement where the service provider works with the person to provide flexible support. It suits anyone who wants flexible support, but without the responsibilities that come with managing a direct payment or personal budget.
Providing flexible support means working with the person to design, develop and manage the best possible support, and being able to alter that support with minimal fuss when changes are needed. Using an ISF is a way in which a service provider can work in partnership with the individual – to respect their needs and wishes.
How Individual Service Funds Work
Individuals are supported by their Local Authority or NHS Clinical Commissioning Group to decide the care and support they need to use with an ISF. They draw up a care and support plan which sets out the services the individual will receive and who will provide them. They also agree a costing plan which sets out how much the services will cost. Practitioners get the care and support plan approved and arrange for the ISF to be set up. This involves a three-way meeting between the individual, practitioner and ISF provider.
The practitioner will arrange for a pre-paid card account to be set up for ISF funds to be placed into and will arrange for the ISF payment to start. Once payments have started, individuals will work with the ISF provider to arrange a chosen care and support to make sure this helps individuals meet their needs and achieve their outcomes. Individuals can choose to have some, or all of their services provided through the ISF provider, or they can choose to use various other service providers of their own choice to meet various other needs.
The ISF provider is able to provide administration management services and oversee the ISF payments and/or can support with creating a support plan which will detail each provider supporting the individual and the costs being paid to each service. The support plan clearly reflects how the ISF payments will be used to provide services that will meet the individual’s needs.
How Troika Consultancy Can Help
Troika Consultancy Ltd is an ISF provider who can take some of the stress off individuals and their families, both physically and financially. By managing the coordination and delivery of their services to meet individual outcomes. We work as a managed brokerage service providing the administration role of an ISF provider, providing quality assurance and practical support for managing the ISF. We remain involved for as long as the individual wants.
Troika Consultancy Ltd offers Brokerage Management services. This entitles assisting individuals to manage their Individual Services Funds through the provision of a Personal Budget or Direct Payment provided by the Local Authority or NHS Clinical Commissioning Group – Continuing Healthcare funding.
Troika Consultancy Services extend to supporting people to managing their self-directed care and support plan outcomes when requested by an individual. We recognise that everyone’s need is different and we are able to work with individuals and their families in an empowering manner so that the individual remains in control of who and how they would like to use their personal budgets for their outcomes to be met.
Troika Consultancy’s role is to support the implementation of the Support Plan agreed between the individual and Social Worker. We offer ongoing support with administration management and implementation of a care and support Plan. Services include but not limited to the following:
- Financial administration- management of your Personal Budget/Personal Health Budget/Direct Payment.
- Brokerage service including communicating with local service providers/ Local Authorities/ CCG etc.