Personal budgets to be extended to young people with mental health needs

Personal health budgets involve a sum of money being allocated to those in receipt of support so that they can have greater control over the care they receive.

Currently, the only people who have a specific right to a personal health budget are adults in receipt of NHS continuing healthcare or children receiving continuing care.

But under plans put out to consultation the government is proposing to extend its reach to include five more groups, including "people of all ages with ongoing mental health needs who make regular and ongoing use of community-based NHS mental health services".

"Given the clear benefits, and given the work the NHS has done to date, we believe there are now a number of other groups who could benefit from this approach," states the government's consultation document.

"We are therefore proposing to extend this right to other groups, to ensure that for people who want a personal health budget and/or an integrated personal budget to address their needs, and if deemed clinically appropriate, the system is in place to ensure they can receive one."

It adds that personal health budgets fit well with mental health support, which is designed around tailored, individual provision, covering a range of issues, including housing needs and finding work. 

"Personal health budgets fit well with the recovery-focused approach to mental health services," states the document.

"The recovery model aims to move beyond symptom and risk management to supporting people to re-establish meaningful lives with their mental health condition.

"It means looking beyond medical treatment to consider wider issues such as housing, employment and relationships. It also depends on services being able to develop individually tailored approaches."

Offering young people with mental health conditions access to personal budgets had been a pledge in the government's 2015 green paper Future in Mind.

This promised to "enable greater access to personal budgets for children and young people (and their families) who have a longer term condition or disorder, to give them more choice and control over when and how they access which services".

A separate green paper on children's mental health provision, published in December last year, proposed further reform, including incentivising schools and colleges to appoint a designated senior mental health lead to co-ordinate school-based support and help children access specialist NHS treatment.

The consultation on extended personal health budgets ends on 8 June.