Personal Health Budgets
Personal health budgets give eligible individuals greater control over how their healthcare and wellbeing needs are met, with plans agreed alongside local NHS teams.
The scheme is expanding to reach up to 200,000 people, supporting those with conditions such as dementia, disability, autism and ongoing mental health needs.
Budgets can be used alongside social care, including direct payments and contributions towards residential care, encouraging more personalised support.
The move highlights a broader shift away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach, influencing how future care services and homes are designed and delivered.
The Department of Health and Social Care recently announced that 200,000 people will have access to personal health budgets by 2024, which means greater control for many over certain factors of their health care. Let’s take a look at what impacts this may have.
How Do Personal Health Budgets Work?
A personal health budget is, “an amount of money to support your health and wellbeing needs, which is planned and agreed between you (or someone who represents you), and your local NHS team”. This budget, which is currently available for over 40,000 people, helps those eligible to personalise their care routine; it can be used to augment social care regimes as well as help those who prefer to remain in independent care.
Expanding The Personal Health Budget Scheme
This expansion of the scheme opens up personal health budgets to more groups of people, giving greater control to a more diverse field of NHS care beneficiaries. This is great news for many and demonstrates a commitment to improving personal health care for the elderly and those suffering from dementia, disability, autism and ongoing mental health needs.
Social care
For those who are eligible, these changes will surely be welcomed. Personal health budgets can be used by those in social care, with direct payments available to make it easier. This is another signifier that, in the future, social care solutions are swaying towards greater personalisation; with the growth of personal health budgets, social care homes can look to implement this philosophy into their designs.
The budget could also be used to help pay towards residential care, which is a fantastic opportunity both for potential residents as well as care home providers working with local councils.
Better care for everyone
Opening up the personal health budget — and its eligibility criteria — can be a great boon for social care. Of course, 200,000 people is not everyone, so care providers must focus on developing care homes and services that provide quality care to a continuously growing number of people. But this idea of personalisation, and moving away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach, is an important lesson for the future.
At Aedifice Partnership, we manage new care home construction as well as refurbishment projects throughout the UK. Call today for a quick quote!