NHS Central West London - London SHA

Key focus/scope

The Central West London pilot is a joint project involving seven organisations: the PCTs and councils of Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster and their joint provider organisation, Central London Community Healthcare.

The Central West London pilot will focus on long term conditions. This includes two subsets: individuals in receipt of NHS-funded continuing care; and individuals with long term conditions at risk of hospital or residential/nursing home admission.

Overview of pilot and its purpose

One of the pilot's goals is to provide benefits to local residents by extending the flexibility people have currently over their social care funding, to their healthcare. Although only a relatively small number of people will be offered a personal health budget in the pilot (and in some cases, both a health and social care budget), Central West London want to test the mechanisms for direct payments in health. The pilot will also seek to understand what people are likely to spend their personal health budgets on, so the health market can be shaped accordingly.

The pilot also plans to ensure that personal health budgets:

• are a good fit with a number of existing local initiatives including integration across health and social care
• are in line with the prevention agenda
• build on the principles of and work already done through the councils' self-directed support programmes
• provide the opportunity to work with neighbouring boroughs and benefit from having a joint provider organisation.

Objectives of pilot

The pilot aims to:

• test the concept of personal health budgets
• introduce personalisation to health services
• provide greater choice, control and responsibility for patients
• help develop the workforce
• support delivery of other ideas and initiatives, e.g. reduce inequalities.

This information has been provided by NHS Central West London.