What are Personal Health Budgets?

A personal health budget is an amount of money to support your health and wellbeing needs, which is planned and agreed between you (or someone who represents you), and your local NHS team. It is not new money, but it may mean spending money differently so that you can get the care that you need.

Is it relevant to me?

Personal health budgets are part of national plans to help people get care that’s right for them, and are becoming increasingly available for people with long-term conditions and disabilities. This may be relevant to you if you are:

• an adult receiving NHS continuing healthcare (NHS-funded long-term health and personal care provided outside hospital);
• have children receiving NHS continuing healthcare;
• are a wheelchair user who is referred and meet the eligibility criteria of your local wheelchair service, plus people who are already registered with the wheelchair service (these people will be eligible for a personal wheelchair budget when they need a new wheelchair);
• an adult with mental health problems who is receiving after-care as a result of being sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

You can find out more and see who’s eligible on the NHS website.

You can get to grips with personal health budgets in this brief explainer video from NHS England and NHS Improvement.