THE way social care is delivered is expected to change for residents of Herefordshire.

The council has joined forces with national organisation, in Control, to pilot a scheme that will radically change the way people receive and manage their services.

Shop 4 Support is a unique web-based technology system that allows people who handle their own social care funding to view payments online, order services and seek information and advice.

Aimed at people who receive what is known as an individual budget, the new portal will, for the first time, bring together a wealth of information in one place.

Herefordshire Council is one of six local authorities to be selected for the pilot, alongside Wigan, Oldham, Sefton, Richmond and Cambridgeshire.

Gill Vickers, Head of Transformation for Adult Social Care at Herefordshire Council said: “We are really pleased to be taking part in the pilot, as it will offer a much wider choice for service users.

"At the moment, we have a number of people across a range of service user groups who are receiving individual budgets and our aim in piloting a web based service through Shop 4 Support is to enable even more people to take control of their lives in this way.”

Caroline Tomlinson, Consumer Support Director at in Control added: “Individual budgets allow people to take control over how the money allocated for their support is spent.

"Until now, there has been no central resource to help them manage these decisions.

"The Shop 4 Support portal will directly help people plan their social care needs, making the whole process much more user-friendly.”

Shop 4 Support has been developed in partnership with Valueworks, a major e-procurement business based in Wigan.

The portal will be launched at a special event at Manchester’s Urbis Gallery on Monday, September 8.

Service providers, community organisations, care brokers and anyone else with something to contribute to the website, are welcome to make contact by visiting shop4support.com