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Mental Health Network reports on personal budgets plan

Personal budgets could be a change for the good, but are such a radical step that the challenges with implementation must be carefully considered by the Government, according to a report from the NHS Confederation’s Mental Health Network.

They use a variety of techniques, including polls, focus groups and in-depth interviews to discover opinion from both service providers and users. Clinicians were found to support greater personalisation and most thought that they already offered personalised care, although this was not a view shared by many service users.

Service users also felt that, even if they were offered more choice through personal budgets, they would still need support and to work with clinicians to make properly informed choices. They also said they would move their care away from an approach focused on drugs and hospital visits to other options not supported by clinical evidence. The clinicians found this ‘unacceptable’.

The Network sets out five tests that need to be met in order to make personal budgets work for services users, including evidence that they can improve outcomes, experience or costs, sufficient guidance and support for patients, and a viable solution for releasing funds for the personal budgets at scale, as there is currently concern that only a significant minority will chose to use personal budgets.

Preparation also needs to be made to integrate personal health budgets in the NHS with personal budgets for social care, and the plan must include motivation for take-up of the scheme.

NHS Confederation Mental Health Network director Steve Shrubb said: “The power given to patients by personal budgets will not stay in their hands unless there is a shared view on how they will work, what support is available and what the evidence base is.

“Simply building the structures and expecting people to come and take up personal budgets will not be enough. The Government and the whole health and social care system have to look at these practical and cultural issues before we can hope to successfully role out personal health budgets.

“A slow but sure approach will ultimately be more effective than a big bang of a launch that ignores or underestimates the challenges of implementation.”

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