Personal Health Budgets

A personal health budget is an amount of money to support a person’s identified health and wellbeing needs, planned and agreed between the individual, or their representative, and the local clinical commissioning group (CCG.) The NHS vision for personal health budgets is to enable people with long term conditions and disabilities to have greater choice, flexibility and control over the health care and support they receive.

At the centre of a personal health budget is the care and support plan. This plan helps people to identify their health and wellbeing goals, together with their local NHS team, and sets out how the budget will be spent to enable them to reach their goals and keep healthy and safe.

Key points:

The NHS stands by its promise that it is there for everyone, based on need not ability to pay.
The NHS care and support people receive should be safe and effective. It should be a positive experience.
Personal health budgets should help people who may not always get the best out of the NHS to get a better service, not make things worse.
They are optional. Nobody would be required to receive their healthcare in this way if they did not want to.
People should have as much control over decisions as they want.
NHS and social care organisations should work in partnership with the individual and with each other.

For more information please visit – www.personalhealthbudgets.england.nhs.uk