GPs have this week been ridiculing personal health budget proposals laid out in the Government’s new draft mandate for the NHS.

An article on GP news website Pulse covers plans to give patients the right to ask for a personal health budget. The comments from GPs on the article are damning.

Are these the same personal health budgets that were spent on laptops and theatre tickets?

Can I spend mine on a trip to the Casino?

(from a sessional/locum GP)

Some comments also question the approach being used to review the success or otherwise of the personal health budget pilot:

To patient groups, I say, “Prove to me it works”. I want scientific evidence, not emotional narrative

Quotes from GPs in the article itself point to a general feeling amongst GPs that the Government may be pushing ahead prematurely with personal health budget plans. Dr David Jenner, a GP in Cullompton, Devon, and GMS/PMS contract lead for the NHS Alliance, is quoted as saying:

The pilots are yet to report so as a commissioner I would be waiting to see the results because I believe in evidence-based policy not policy-based evidence.

You can find the draft mandate here.

What do you think? Is the Government getting ahead of itself with personal health budgets?

Photo by a2gemma

The Personal Health Budget Pilot 5th Interim Evaluation Report has now been published.

As with previous editions of the reports, the findings are fairly encouraging: on the whole, personal health budgets seem to be working well for the people receiving them.

Here’s a quick summary:

Outcomes

• Based on interviews with 52 budget holders and 13 carers of budget holders.
• Budgets had improved health and increased general wellbeing.

Choices

• Most interviewees felt comfortable making choices about their health.
• A few interviewees would have liked more professional advice.

Main Uses of Budgets

• Most used them for employing carers / personal assistants.
• Some also used them for home delivery of frozen meals, computers, wheelchairs and other equipment, and social activities.

Implementation Challenges

• Some interviewees didn’t know they had a personal budget, how much it was for, or how much of their budget remained.
• Lack of clarity for some about what personal health budgets could and could not be used for.
• Delays in care/support plan approvals and getting approved items/services in place.
• Not integrated with social care funding.

You can download the report here.

The final report is due in October 2012.

What do you think of this latest report and what the findings say for personal health budgets?

Cartoon UK © by thatscottishengineer

Here’s a list of the 20 sites currently involved in in-depth pilots of NHS personal health budgets:

• Avon, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset Cardiac and Stroke Network (Swindon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire)
• Barking and Dagenham
• Bedfordshire
• BHWP – Birmingham East And North (with South Birmingham) – LTCs bid
• Central West London – Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster
• Doncaster
• Dorset
• Eastern And Coastal Kent
• Hartlepool & Stockton
• Havering
• Hull Teaching
• Manchester
• Medway
• Merseyside (joint bid – Sefton, Knowlsey and Liverpool)
• Norfolk
• Northamptonshire Teaching
• Nottingham City
• Oxfordshire
• Stoke On Trent
• Torbay Care Trust
• West Sussex

For details of the scope of the pilot at each site and of the personal health budget pilot sites that are engaged in less in-depth pilots, have a look at the Department of Health table here.

Forum for Personal Health Budget Professionals © by Editor B

If you’re working in the field of NHS personal health budgets, you may be keen to connect with likeminded professionals.

I’ve created a LinkedIn group for personal health budgets. It’s free to join, so why not join the discussion and connect now?

Are personal health budgets the best approach? © by karola riegler photography

Angela Coulter has posted a thoughtful article on the King’s Fund blog questioning whether personal health budgets are the best way to personalise health care.

There are some interesting comments already by Mo Smith of Regenerate-RISE and Simon Lawton-Smith the Head of Policy at the Mental Health Foundation, amongst others.

Read the article here.

Discuss PHBs © by lanx1983

Looking for a place to discuss personal health budgets?

You’re welcome to post comments on this blog. Or you might like to check out the discussions going on at the NHS personal health budgets forum.

The NHS have provided an October 2011 update on personal health budgets.

Click here to read it.

The Dutch Experience: a Personal Health Budget Case Study © by maurobrock

One argument in favour of personal health budgets has been their great popularity in the Netherlands. But now the Dutch are looking at cutting back massively on their personal health budget programme. Should we be worried?

Since its launch in 1996, the Dutch scheme has become very popular. In some ways, too popular. More and more people have requested personal health budgets and the government has struggled to meet demand.

Under the changes proposed by the Dutch government, the eligibility criteria for their personal health budgets will be tightened up drastically. Only people who would otherwise be in a care institution will be eligible for a budget.

117,000 elderly and handicapped people will lose funding to buy care services themselves. Instead, the services will be paid for directly by health insurance companies and local authorities.

As a debate in the Dutch parliament about the issue approaches, lots of people have been voicing concerns about the proposals.

What will happen in the Netherlands? And what does it mean for personal health budgets in the UK?

Will PHBs Improve the NHS? © by 38 Degrees

“Wow!” That’s what I thought when I first heard it. “This is big.”

Did you know that, from the start of the roll-out in October 2012, fifty-three thousand people could be offered personal health budgets?

That’s right – 53,000 people. That’s more than you can fit in Liverpool Football Club’s stadium. It’s 40 times the number of people who are currently receiving personal health budgets. It’s a lot.

And how much money do those people represent? A whopping £2 billion a year in costs to the NHS.

People Receiving Continuing Care will be Offered Personal Health Budgets First

On October 4th, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley announced that personal health budgets will be offered first to the tens of thousands of people receiving NHS Continuing Healthcare.

People getting NHS Continuing Healthcare tend to be in one of 3 categories:

1. People with complex medical conditions that require a lot of care and support
2. People needing highly specialised nursing support
3. People nearing the end of their lives, with conditions that are rapidly getting worse and may be terminal

The care is provided outside hospital and has traditionally been arranged by the NHS.

What is Covered by Continuing Care?

These are the kinds of services provided under Continuing Care:

• healthcare services provided by your GP or in hospital
• personal care at home (dressing, getting up, going to bed, bathing)
• meal deliveries (hot or frozen)
• day centres
• care in a care home

Who Foots the Bill for Continuing Care at the Moment?

Currently, continuing care is paid for either 100% by the NHS (for those who are eligible) or partly by the NHS and partly by your local authority. If some of the costs are being covered by your local authority, you may have to pay towards it as well (depending on your income and savings).

How Will Things Change?

If the personal health budget pilot programme is anything to go by, no-one will be forced to have a personal health budget. Instead, you’ll have the choice to have one or stick with your current healthcare arrangements.

If you do choose to have a personal health budget, you’ll have much more control over what sort of care you get to meet your healthcare needs and where you get it from. For example, you might currently receive regular advice from a dietician. Instead, with a personal health budget, you might decide to sign up to an online diet programme.

What’s Next?

In this blog I’ll be writing about how to decide whether to choose a personal health budget or not, and how best to manage it if you do choose one.

Subscribe now if you’d like to read handy tips, useful advice and important news about personal health budgets.

Available now through your personal health budget? © by ihasb33r

One of the most exciting aspects about personal health budgets is that they can be used towards alternative therapies that might not otherwise be available through the NHS. One example is paying for pets.

Since pets such as cats and dogs can have a positive impact on their owner’s wellbeing, making them feel more relaxed and happier, it may be possible to pay for them through a personal health budget.

One of the video stories on the Department of Health’s personal health budgets website features Sandie, a woman with MS, who has used her social care personal budget to pay for a cat. She speculates that, since it brings real health benefits, she might also have been able to use her personal health budget to pay for her pet.

I’d love to hear from anyone who has tried this. Have you included a pet as part of your personal health budget? Or do you know someone who has?