1. Personal Health Budgets
Georgina Walton
Personal Health Budget Project Manager

2. Personal Health Budgets
Backdrop
“ You have the right to make choices about your NHS care and to information to support these choices. The options available to you will develop over time and depend on your individual needs.”
(Section 2a of the NHS Constitution)

3. Personal Health Budgets
Evidence from social care
Co-production
Better outcomes (even if service doesn’t change at all)
Cost effective
Direct payments can work well for all ages, personal backgrounds, conditions

4. Personal Health Budgets
Key deliverables
National
People know up front roughly how much their personal health budget will be
People can choose how to use their personal health budget in the way that suits them best
A range of deployment options are available

5. Personal Health Budgets
Upholding NHS values
Quality is key!
Tackling inequalities and protecting equality
Personal health budgets are voluntary
Decision making close to the individual
Partnership
Six principles

6. Personal Health Budgets
Who can have a personal budget?
Anyone who wants one. Needs should be such that a budget can be reasonably set
What can a budget be spent on?
Not emergency care or core GP services
Agreed care plan with agreed health and wellbeing objectives
Services should be appropriate for the state to provide – not gambling, debt repayment, alcohol, tobacco

7. Personal Health Budgets
What’s involved?
There are 4 key stages Personal Health Budgets
Managing the
plan and getting
the care
eg by direct payment
Knowing amount of money in the budget
Agreeing the Care plan which sets out:
health needs / outcomes,
money in budget
What goods and services will be bought and the cost of these
Monitoring
and
Review

8. Personal Health Budgets
Different ways of delivering a personal health budget
Notional individual budget
Already legally possible
Personal care
plans
More direct control to individuals
Real budget held on the individual’s behalf
Direct payment – cash held by patient

9. Personal Health Budgets
Local key deliverables
NHS Eastern and Coastal Kent to pilot
Continuing Health Care with 20 patients
End of Life Care with 4 patients
Maternity with 30 women
Carers
Mental Health with 20 individuals

10. Personal Health Budgets
Local key deliverables
To build on the integrated commissioning structures between Health and Social Care, KCC has been supporting NHS Eastern and Coastal Kent and will test the potential of the Kent Card as the payment mechanism for the Personal Health Budget

11. Personal Health Budgets
Evaluation of the pilot
The independent evaluation team in place will
report at intervals over 3 years, to include:
Health, wellbeing, experience and access
Variation by condition and background
Financial impact
Effect on NHS services
Practical – what works, what doesn’t?
Impact on staff

12. Personal Health Budgets
Programme timeline
Summer 2010 First interim report published
March 2010 Regulation in place
2012 end of pilots and evaluation
Mid-2010 direct payments allowed in pilots (subject to regulation)
April 2010 Recruitment to evaluation cohort starts

13. Personal Health Budgets
Conclusion: personal health budgets
Drawing on the evidence from social care and other countries
Still a long way to go – this will take time, and there are many risks and challenges to overcome
But great potential to improve the quality of care and make services more personalised
A real commitment to join up and share learning with other programme
For more information, visit:
or the team at

14. Personal Health Budgets
Some potential examples of things which could be included
Equipment - electric wheelchairs, beds etc
Hydrotherapy
Complimentary therapy eg acupuncture
Air conditioning
Activities and classes instead of traditional mental health services
Alternative respite arrangements