What are personal health budgets?

What are personal health budgets?

A personal health budget is an amount of money to support the identified health and wellbeing needs of an individual, which are planned and agreed between that person, or their representative, and Liverpool Place.

A personal health budget is an amount of money to support the identified health and wellbeing needs of an individual, which are planned and agreed between that person, or their representative, and Liverpool Place.

The aim of a personal health budget is to make sure people with long term health conditions and disabilities have greater choice and control around how money is spent on meeting their recognised health and wellbeing needs. They are one way of helping people to be more involved in discussions and decisions about their care.

Personal health budgets are a different way of spending NHS funding to make sure that people get more of the personalised care they require based around what matters to them and their individual strengths and needs. They also help people to be more involved in managing their health and support in a way which suits them best.

A personal health budget is based on an individualised care and support plan which sets out a person’s health and wellbeing needs, the things that they want to achieve, the amount of money available to them and the ways in which it can be spent. For children, this also includes their educational needs. The amount that someone receives in their personal health budget will depend on the assessment of their health and wellbeing needs and the cost of meeting these needs. When the plan and budget have been agreed, the different ways of managing the money in a personal budget plan will be discussed in detail.

Personal health budgets may be used for a range of things to meet a person’s assessed health and wellbeing outcomes. This can include therapies, personal care and equipment. There are some restrictions in how the budget can be spent and, in addition, a personal health budget will not cover all the NHS care a person may need so things like attending A&E, hospital stays, GP appointments or medication are not included.