Maureen Bourne was the first Islington resident to take advantage of the newest way to pay for the care services her mother gets from Islington Council when she paid by credit card.
From this month, anyone using Islington Council's care services can pay for it by telephone using their debit or credit cards. All together there are now five convenient ways to pay for residential or home care. Other payment options such as cash or cheque payments at council offices, standing order or a swipe card*, will continue to be available.
Mrs Bourne whose mother Ivy Oxborrow has been a resident at St Anne's Residential Home since July this year, said: "When you work full time it is difficult to make payments. This is the ideal way to pay."
By law, councils must charge people in residential care for the service they get - their level of contribution is based on their income. With the council also thinking about changing how it charges for home care services, which it is currently consulting service users about, it believes it is crucial to make it even easier for people to pay. Residents can give their opinion about the council's care charges by visiting its website at www.islington.gov.uk.
Cllr John Gilbert, Islington Council's Executive Member for Health and Social Services said: "People wanting to pay for residential care by credit or debit cards should contact Islington Council on 020 7527 8979, and for home care 020 7527 8961.
"By law people in residential care must contribute towards their care according to their income so we want to make it as easy and convenient for them to pay as possible by offering lots of payment options.
"We introduced credit and debit card payments as soon as we found out there was a demand for making payments this way. The procedure for paying will be the same as when people pay for non-council goods or services over the telephone. We will need all the relevant details and we will make security checks - as long as people have all the right details to hand it should not take more than five minutes."
All payments will be authorised using a secure confidential payment system and people using this method will be given a reference number once their cards have been authorised to make a payment.
Before Christmas this year, a direct debit payment option will be introduced to give people even further choice about how to pay for care services.
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Page Last Updated: 29 July 2008