Agenda item

4.1

Public Question in respect of Personal Healthcare Budgets

Mike Simpkin commented that NHS England was actively encouraging the introduction of personal healthcare budgets. He therefore asked what effect did the Board think this was likely to have on health and social care services in Sheffield?

Tim Moorhead commented that the issue had been debated at the Clinical Commissioning Group. Sheffield was required to implement personal healthcare budgets as their introduction was in national legislation. There had been pilots in the City over the last 2-3 years. Success had been mixed and the use of personal budgets had not been shown to reduce service costs. There was still a lot to learn and the impact on the social care system had not yet been understood.

Councillor Julie Dore added that there was a wish to see assessments integrated as having separate assessments for health and social care did not make sense.

Councillor Mary Lea commented that personal budgets within social care had been used for a number of years. There had been issues which had arisen. It was important to closely monitor budgets. There is evidence to suggest the system can work better if budgets were integrated. Further discussions would be held on the issue.

Pam Enderby commented that the issue had also been discussed at Healthwatch Sheffield where concern had been expressed about the changes to social care budgets. She stated that it would be useful to have some information on the Council’s website as a lack of information about the changes was causing concern about the impact.