A personal health budget is an amount of money to support a person's individual health and wellbeing needs, as agreed between the individual and their local NHS team.
The person's health and wellbeing needs will be set out in a personalised care and support plan.
Personalised care is about looking at the needs of the individual as a whole and working with them to prepare a care plan that suits their personal needs.
The plan will be developed by the person together with health care professionals. It will record how the budget will be used to support the health and wellbeing needs agreed by both the person and the local NHS team.
There are six components to this:
NHS Kent and Medway has made personal health budgets the default method of commissioning care for adults who are eligible for NHS continuing healthcare and in receipt of care at home.
In addition, those who are eligible for children and young people's continuing care have the right to have a personal health budget.
The NHS wheelchair service also offers personal wheelchair budgets to support wheelchair users in Kent and Medway to access a wider choice of wheelchair.
Since Monday, 2 December 2019, people who access wheelchair services, whose posture and mobility needs impact their wider health and social care needs, now have a legal right to a personal wheelchair budget.
People that are eligible for Section 117 mental health aftercare also have a right to a personal health budget.
If they are assessed as needing care at home, that is jointly funded by the local authority and the NHS Integrated Care Board (ICB). Their NHS Assessor and social worker will discuss personal health budgets as part of the personalised care and support planning process.
The ICB aims to increase the offer of personalised care.
Personalised care and support planning is essential to making personal health budgets work well. A personalised care and support 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 achieve the agreed outcomes and keep healthy and safe.
The person with a personal health budget (or their representative) should:
A personal health budget and integrated personal budget is an amount of money to support a person's identified health and wellbeing needs, planned and agreed between them and their local integrated care board. This may lead to integrated personal budgets for those with both health and social care needs. This isn't new money. It is a different way of managing health funding to meet the care needs of an individual.
A personal health budget can be managed in three ways, or a combination of these.
No money changes hands. You find out how much money is available for your assessed needs and together with your NHS team you decide on how to spend that money. They will then arrange the agreed care and support for you.
Provided by an organisation legally independent of both you and the NHS. For example, an independent user trust or a voluntary organisation. They hold the money for you, and also pay for and arrange the care and support agreed in your care plan.
You get the money to arrange and pay the for the care and support you and your NHS team agrees you need. You must show what you have spent it on, but you, or your representative, buy and manage services yourself.
NHS Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB) will monitor it's delivery of personal health budgets internally, reporting to the it's governing bodies. It will also report nationally to NHS England.
NHS Kent and Medway ICB also welcomes feedback from people and their families about their experience of personal health budgets and will use this information to improve the delivery and roll-out of personal health budgets in the future.
If you have any questions please email kmicb.ageingwell@nhs.net.
NHS Kent and Medway has made personal health budgets the default method of commissioning care for adults who are eligible for NHS Continuing Healthcare (NHS CHC) in receipt of care at home.
In addition, those who are eligible for children and young people's continuing care have the right to have a personal health budget.