Personal health budget pilots to be assessed

The success or otherwise of personal health budgets is to be assessed in a study on their benefits across 20 of the 70 English sites currently piloting the initiative.

The budgets were announced earlier this year in the Health Bill, the legislation designed to make flesh Lord Darzi's 2008 'High Quality Care for All' document on the future of the NHS in England.

Direct payments for healthcare to NHS patients are seen as one means of encouraging the creation of a more personalised NHS, something Darzi identified as desirable.

The new study "will help us to understand the benefits and limitations" of the initiative, according to health minister Phil Hope.

Evaluation is to last three years, with newsletters, research summaries and interim reports to be made available online.

"During the consultation for the Next Stage Review, people said clearly and consistently that they want a greater degree of control and influence over their health and healthcare," Hope added.

"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."

The budgets give patients the freedom to choose the support services they want for themselves or for a family member.

The NHS says they have been introduced "following their successful use for patients receiving social care".

The NHS Confederation believes health outcomes are improved when patients are directly involved in making decisions.

It has said the new budgets could have a positive impact in areas such as end-of-life care, mental health and maternity services.

But there are a variety of questions around their implementation: for example, whether patients should be allowed to spend them on treatments which have not been deemed cost-effective, or allowed to invest them for future spending.

Earlier this year the government selected 70 sites across England to pilot personal health budgets.

The study on 20 of these will be carried out by the Personal Social Services Research Unit at the University of Kent, the Social Policy Research Unit at the University of York, and Imperial College London.

Locations it will look at range from Hull to Torbay, and Hartlepool to Medway.

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