Personal health budgets to be piloted in 20 PCTs

The Government has asked 20 PCTs across England to undertake a three-year trial of personal health budgets for patients with long-term conditions. The scheme will involve GPs helping patients to decide on the best types of treatment and care that they can afford to buy with their own budget. As well as giving patients more power over their own care, the Government hopes that it will save money through patients not using up all the money allocated. Each of the PCTs involved in the trial will allocate personal budgets to a group of patients with specific long-term conditions, such as cardiac and stroke patients, or who have certain care requirements, for example, end of life care and continuing care. The success of the pilot schemes will be measured in a number of ways including patient feedback, improvements in care outcomes and whether the PCTs have saved money. Health minister Phil Hope commented on the trial during a visit to Devon to promote its launch at Torbay PCT: ‘The introduction of personal health budgets will support the cultural change needed to create a more personalised NHS. They have the potential to improve the quality of patient experience and the effectiveness of care by giving individuals as much control over their healthcare as is appropriate for them.’ However, the idea of personal health budgets has not proved to be universally popular amongst the GPs that will facilitate the scheme, with one commenting: ‘I’m worried that we could end up with patients claiming that they are being denied treatment because of how much it costs...and I can’t see how this scheme can fail to increase our workload.’ For more information about personal health budgets, please visit the Department of Health’s website.