By Lucy Phillips | 12 August 2011
Mental health service users in England are sceptical that
personal budgets will improve their care, according to a report published
today.
Many were also confused about what personal budgets were and how they would integrate into similar funding streams in the social care system.
The report Personal health budgets: the views of service users and carers is based on interviews with 60 people who participated in focus groups and 100 people who responded to a survey. It is the third in a series looking into the implementation of personal budgets. The previous reports took into account the views of clinicians and NHS leaders.
Personal budgets give patients control over funding for the services they choose. The ones being piloted in the NHS are separate from those that are already in widespread use by local authorities for social care.
The piloting of personal budgets in the NHS began in 2009 and an evaluation will be published in October next year. Although begun under the Labour government, the policy is also supported in the coalition’s health white paper Equity and excellence: liberating the NHS.
More widespread use of personal budgets is also backed by the NHS Confederation. It is calling on the government to extend the pilot schemes and begin a programme to involve clinicians more.
Steve Shrubb, director of the NHS Confederation’s mental health network, said: ‘There is clearly scepticism among service users about personal budgets being just one more policy solution that promises so much and delivers so little.
‘We need to show service users that they will be supported properly so this is not just another policy initiative that over promises and under delivers. We also need to bring clinicians fully on side by providing a robust evidence base.
‘Personal budgets should not be another chapter in an often sorry history of good ideas poorly implemented before the evidence is fully considered.’
