£1.5m available to "ensure more care is tailored around people's individual needs and preferences"

Personal health budgets could be rolled out to help individuals choose the most appropriate care for their needs, Care and Support Minister Norman Lamb announced today.

£1.5 million has been identified to support this potential roll-out of personal health budgets and the Department of Health says it will give patients real control and choice, by ensuring that care is tailored to meet their health and care needs.

There are 60 Primary Care Trusts across the country currently involved in a pilot programme to determine the best way to implement the budgets, identifying how it could benefit those who need it most and what it could be spent on.

With the evaluation of the pilot scheme due in the autumn, the Department of Health has identified the 1.5m to support the first stage of a potential roll out as soon as the findings are revealed.

Care and Support Minister Norman Lamb said: “We want to ensure more care is tailored around people’s individual needs and preferences. Giving those with complex health needs the control of how to spend money on their care gives them and their doctors the flexibility to try innovative new approaches to achieve better health outcomes.

“Subject to the results of the current pilot programme, our aim is to introduce a right to a personal health budget for people who would benefit from them most – the scale and pace of this will be informed by the independent evaluation.

“We want to be on the front foot as the results become known – that is why we’ve identified £1.5m to support the NHS in the first stage of the roll out as it starts to implement personal health budgets.”

At the heart of a personal health budget is a care plan which sets out:

• the individuals’ needs or desired health outcomes,

• the amount of money in their budget, and

• how this will be spent.

The patient will develop their personal care plan with their healthcare professionals and others and it will then be agreed with the Primary Care Trust (in future, the clinical commissioning group).

The patient’s individual needs will determine the amount of money in their personal health budget and how it will be allocated.

For more information on personal health budgets, visit: www.personalhealthbudgets.dh.gov.uk/About/faqs/