More ink has been spilled over the introduction of personal budgets than any reform in health and social care for a generation. The dawning realisation that they are coming (within five years, around 1.5 million people could be using them) has meant that the rhetoric is being replaced by practical questions. The most pressing of all is also the most obvious: what will people, when given a personal budget, want to spend their money on?
Demos, together with Barchester Health and Castlebeck, this week launched a new piece of work that has tried to answer that question. We surveyed 263 people who currently use social and health care services (but are not using a personal budget) across four local authorities to find out what they think about personal budgets, how they would spend it, and what difficulties they envisage doing so.
The results give food for thought. A very large number – about four in five – know nothing or very little and would only feel comfortable having one if they were given help managing and spending it. Yet personal budgets will mean real change: more than half of people surveyed would change some aspect of the care they currently receive - and there will be an increased demand for personal assistants and leisure services in particular. But contrary to predictions that the Daily Mail will be falling over itself to write headline about public money buying sex, drugs, and football season tickets, roughly half of everyone surveyed were quite happy to keep what they had – and older people even more so.
Choice is only meaningful if options exist to choose between. More than ever, providers and local authorities need to work together to make sure they will be able to respond to new demand that personal budgets will bring. For local authorities in particular that is going to mean stimulating the market where shortages are likely to appear, and helping people make the transition. Turning the rhetoric into reality starts here.
Jamie Bartlett is head of the independence programme at Demos
