Disabled people still struggling to pay care workers, a month after payment company’s tech failure

Disabled people who rely on social care are still struggling to pay their personal assistants (PAs), more than a month after a catastrophic technology failure.

The failure struck on 13 July and hit people who use direct payments to arrange council-funded care, using pre-paid cards that have money loaded on them by the council, allowing them to use the card to pay their PA, agency or other care costs.

More than a month after the first problems with the card payment system, Disability News Service (DNS) is still hearing from disabled people who are finding it difficult to use the system to pay their PAs.

More than 100 councils across Britain use the service.

The latest update on the website of Prepaid Financial Services (PFS), which runs the system and is part of Australian-based EML Payments, said the company continued to “make progress toward full service restoration”.

But it highlighted several areas in which there were continuing problems, including issuing new cards, viewing past transactions, and processing standing orders.

One disabled person, from a London borough, said the continuing problems with the system were causing her significant distress.

Last month, she was only able to pay three of her PAs by using money she was left in her mum’s will.

Although her council’s direct payments office has managed to transfer money from the PFS account to her personal bank account – so she can pay July’s wages – she now fears the Department for Work and Pensions will see this payment as extra income and ask questions about her benefits.

She said: “It’s all such a nightmare and I am so broken and exhausted and really struggling to cope.”

Another of those affected, from the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, said: “I’m currently on the sixth day of the payment system being down and being unable to pay carers.”

He plans to send information about the problems to his MP.

He said: “I have ADHD so it takes a lot for me to do this admin stuff and it was really frustrating having people complain to me about not being paid when it was out of my hands.

“My care agency was like, ‘You know a lot of agencies would have dropped their clients by now,’ and I need help to get out of bed and toilet and shower, so it was hard not to read that as a threat.”

Action on Disability (AoD), a disabled people’s organisation based in the borough, said that about half the users of direct payments receive their funds through PFS cards.

AoD’s direct payments support service has so far dealt with about 100 queries on the issue, while it has issued updates through its mailing-list.

David Buxton, AoD’s chief executive, said the risk was that care agencies and self-employed PAs could suspend their services if they are not paid, while employed PAs could resign.

He said a growing number of residents had reported being unable to access the PFS online portal or reach support via its helpline in the last month, while there were “excessive wait times” on the PFS helpline, inaccurate displays showing up on the PFS online portal, and PAs not receiving wages, despite direct debits for those wages being set up through PFS card accounts.

AoD has been liaising with the council, care agencies and individual PAs, as well as insurance providers, to help employers of PAs maintain their insurance cover.

Previously, payroll services appeared to have been unaffected, but this week AoD received confirmation of “disruptions” to direct debits set up by payroll-providers on behalf of disabled people who use direct payments.

Hammersmith and Fulham council said it was still working to support service-users hit by the problems with the PFS system.

A council spokesperson said: “While most of the core services have been restored for users, issues such as viewing transaction history, card reissuance, and isolated cases of access problems remain.

“Many residents can now make direct payments, withdraw cash from ATMs, and access the cardholder portal, but some discrepancies persist.”

The council said it was making manual payments to residents and their personal assistants, and it was supporting those affected.

Anne Pridmore, from Leicestershire, director of the user-led organisation Being the Boss, which supports disabled people who employ PAs, said there were still “big problems” with the system, including with new recipients of direct payments who do not yet have the cards they need to pay their PAs.

She told DNS: “None of the past transactions are visual on our accounts and I believe some people have found missing transactions in their accounts.”

West of England Centre for Inclusive Living (WECIL), which previously reported significant problems with the system, including PAs left unpaid, employers unable to access their funds, and essential care and support arrangements “placed in jeopardy”, said it had not heard of any problems with PFS in the last few days.

The Local Government Association (LGA) said it was unable to say how many councils were still affected by the PFS problems, but that there were a “few residual localised issues that are affecting a limited number of users”, while “work is ongoing to resolve these”.

An LGA spokesperson added: “We know that the original issues were widespread, and that there are now limited issues affecting a significantly smaller number.”

Peter Lang, EML’s chief corporate development officer, who is based in Australia, had not responded to a request to comment by noon today (Thursday).

Picture by Andrew Parsons/No 10 Downing Street

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