The Department of Health has produced a discussion paper on Personal Health Budgets for people receiving NHS continuing Healthcare. This paper is the first of a number of documents on the subject.

Personal health budget are currently being piloted in a number of areas in England, Doncaster being one of them, and some members of active Independence are now part of this pilot and are seeing the benefits of this new person-centred, flexible way of receiving health care.

By April 2014 everyone in receipt of NHS CHC will have a right to ask for a personal health budget, including a direct payment. This will form part of a broader rollout of personal health budgets to people with long term health conditions.

The document defines personal health budgets and NHS Continuing Healthcare, and gives more information about the recent Government announcement. It discusses how personal health budgets are relevant to people receiving NHS CHC and how personal health budgets change the NHS CHC pathway. It also goes through some practical considerations and next steps, and gives some useful case studies and Q+As.

http://www.personalhealthbudgets.dh.gov.uk/Topics/latest/Resource/?cid=8391