About personal health budgets

A personal health budget allows people to have more choice, flexibility and control over the health services and care they receive.

A pilot programme involving around half the primary care trusts in England is currently underway to test out personal health budgets in the NHS. The programme and its evaluation will explore who will benefit most from personal health budgets, and how the NHS can make them work.

This is a very different way of managing health care, and we know there are many details to work through. That is why we are piloting personal health budgets, and evaluating the work that the pilot sites will do.

The pilot programme will run for three years until 2012, with the final report on the evaluation available in October 2012.