What are personal health budgets?
A personal health budget is an amount of money to support an individual’s identified healthcare and wellbeing needs, planned and agreed between an individual, or their representative, and their local NHS team.
At the centre of a personal health budget is a care plan. This plan helps a person decide their health and wellbeing goals, together with the local NHS team who support them, and sets out how a budget will be spent to enable them to reach their goals, and to keep healthy and safe.
Who can have a personal health budget?
Since April 2014, people eligible for NHS Continuing Health Care, which is NHS-funded long-term health and personal care provided outside hospital, could apply for a personal health budget. This includes both children and adults.
Adults who are eligible for NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) funding, and children in receipt of Continuing Care have had a legal right to have a Personal Health Budget (PHB) since October 2014.
By April 2019, NHS England now expects that unless there are exceptional circumstances, everyone living in their own home who is in receipt of NHS Continuing Healthcare funding will be offered a Personal Health budget as the default delivery method of care.
NHS Bury CCG is looking to further develop personal health budgets and extend this offer to the following groups:
- People who have a Learning Disability and are eligible for NHS services
- People with mental health problem in receipt of s117 funding
- Children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) who have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHC)
- People in receipt of joint packages of care funded by both health and Social Care
- People who required complex equipment
- People who have other identified health care needs
What do I do if I want a personal health budget?
Talk to your local NHS team who help you most often with your care - this might be a care manager, or a health professional, and they will discuss personal health budgets with you. Even if a personal health budget is not right for you, you can talk to them about other ways to make sure that you get the healthcare and support that works best for you.
If you have a personal health budget
There will be an Assessment of your care needs to establish what support you will need and how this can be arranged.
If you have a personal health budget, you will be able to use it for a range of things to help you meet your goals, for example, therapies, personal care and equipment. You will not be able to pay for emergency care and care you normally get from a family doctor. In addition, personal health budgets must not be spent on gambling, debt repayment, alcohol or tobacco, or anything unlawful.
How are they funded?
There are no new resources for Personal Health Budgets and they must be funded within our existing NHS financial resources.
For more information about personal health budgets
- Contact the CCG
- Download the 'understanding personal health budgets' leaflet - also available in an easy read version
- Go to the personal health budgets page on the NHS Choices website
- If you want to share experiences, advice and support with other people who have a personal health budget, their Carers and families, you can visit the peoplehub website
Last Updated: 7th Jul 2021, 15:24