Personal Budgets: Introduction

This briefing document provides an introduction to personal budgets and describes how they have worked already in other settings, such as adult social care. The briefing is for voluntary sector providers of children’s palliative care in England – including children’s hospices – to help them understand personal budgets. It includes case studies and links to other resources and best practice examples.

This briefing was published by Together for Short Lives and prepared by the charity In Control. The resource was produced as part of a Department for Education-funded project between 2014-16 to engage children’s palliative care in the special educational needs and disability (SEND) reforms.

The briefing is available as a free download using the link on this page.

Briefing two describes how personal budgets will work for families of children with life-threatening and life-limiting conditions
Briefing three advises children’s palliative care services on the action they need to take to prepare for personal budgets being implemented.
All three

Welcoming the new resources, Peter Ellis, Chief Executive of Richard House Children’s Hospice, said: “These briefings will help to prepare services like ours as more young people and families receive their own personal budgets and seek not only to purchase services, but ask for guidance. While the new budgets present a great opportunity for families to exert more choice and control over their lives, they will challenge the way in which voluntary sector care providers operate – not least in the way we ask for and receive statutory funding. However, one of the strengths of the children’s palliative care sector is our longstanding ability to provide care which is centred on the needs and wishes of children and their families. These briefings will help providers to draw on this heritage and offer greater choice and control to families as personal budgets become a reality.”