NHS England Planning guidance – The Forward View into action: Planning for 2015/16 states:

“To give patients more direct control, we expect CCGs to lead a major expansion in 2015/16 in the offer and delivery of personal health budgets to people, where evidence indicates they could benefit…CCGs should engage widely and fully with their local communities and patients, including with their local Healthwatch, and include clear goals on expanding personal health budgets within their published local Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy.”

A personal health budget is an amount of money to support a person’s individual health and wellbeing needs, as agreed between the person and their local Healthcare team as described below:

• The person’s health and well-being needs will be set out in a personal led care plan which will be developed by the person together with a healthcare professional.

• How the budget will be used to support the health and well-being needs will be set out in a person led support plan agreed by both the person and the local NHS team.

• Personal Health Budgets will be targeted at those with the highest, complex needs, which will be a small part of the population.

• Until detailed work is undertaken on restructuring existing contracts and budgets there is no new money available locally to support Personal Health Budgets.

NHS England has advised that CCG’s need to pay due regard to meeting their legal duties in respects to equality and health inequalities and consult widely as the local plans as developed over the next 5 years.

This Offer is subject to an Equalities Impact Assessment which will be reviewed along with the Offer throughout the consultation period.