Giving people choice and control
over their care
Many of the issues relating to good care are about effective integration of services centred on the patient. Everyone Counts: Planning for Patients describes a modern model of integrated care as being one where patients experience holistic care which is joined-up and is a single tailored package for each patient.
Since April 2014 patient eligible for Continuing Health Care (CHC) have had the right to request a Personal Health Budget (PHB). PHBs are used to purchase support to meet identified assessed health needs. Patients identify their own goals and what help they want to manage their condition in consultation with a clinician. The national team has published a short animated film showing how personal health budgets can offer more choice for people as part of NHS Continuing Healthcare. The film goes through six steps involved in providing people with a personal health budget, and is a great resource for all Continuing Healthcare teams and professionals.
Sitting alongside PHB is the newly launched Integrated Personal Commissioning (IPC) programme which will, for the first time, blend comprehensive health and social care funding for individuals, and allow them to direct how it is used.
In addition to the South West being an IPC demonstrator site, 3 of the 6 STP areas in the South West, Devon, Somerset and Gloucestershire have agreed to go further faster bringing in additional funding to these local areas to support implementation of the programme. Somerset CCG are pictured below with members of the national team at the signing of their agreement to implement IPC:
