Councillors have approved a package of new prices for social care services in Moray.
The rates were agreed yesterday after members were updated on the introduction of the self-directed support programme, which aims to give people more control over their own care.
Residents will be able to choose from a series of options, including day services at £100, respite from £200-£215 and home care at an hourly rate of £22.28.
The measures will be discussed at public awareness sessions later this month.
Service manager Joyce Lorimer told yesterday’s meeting of the health and social care services committee: “There will always be a group of people who have on-going support needs.
“SDS allows individuals to decide what’s important to them based on their needs and what ordinary life looks like to them.
“It’s a national 10-year strategy and we are in year four-and-a-half, so the target is to be flexible and adaptable to change.
“We are all learning as we go along, as an agency and the people using the service, but we are up for making it work in Moray.”
Councillors considered a range of work which is underway to help people with learning disabilities, encourage healthy and independent living and prevent loneliness and isolation.
Our Lives, Our Way – a Moray Learning Disability Partnership action plan designed to support people with a learning disability – was approved for public distribution.
Councillors also discussed the possibility of closer working between the Living It Up scheme and Old People’s Development Team to combat loneliness and isolation.
Councillor Patsy Gowans said breaking down age boundaries made for healthy communities and suggested combining the Moray’s Men’s Shed project in Keith with a Living it Up pop-up shop to fight elderly isolation.
Three new Be Active Life Long groups are also being launched in Bishopmill, Findochty and Cullen.
Councillor Joe Mackay stressed the importance of giving older people the proper tools to fight isolation, adding: “I find this project, in my mind, a worthwhile necessity, rather than a community amenity.
“Boredom is the evil that the elderly are faced with.”