Writing to Lord Darzi , Social Perspectives Network has called for people with mental health problems to be included in the pilot projects linking health and social care resources in individual budgets. Last month the Darzi report promised that there would be a national pilot programme for those with long term conditions.
In his letter Terry Bamford, Director of SPN, says “It would be wholly wrong if mental health users were to be excluded from the personal health care budget pilots and again cut off from the mainstream of service development.” He notes however that direct payments have taken off more slowly for this group of service users than for any other.
Both the review of the Care Programme Approach and the recent Health care Commission report show that “despite guidelines to include patients’ views in their care plans, this actually occurred in only 50% of cases”.
Press Release below sent on Monday 1st September
Mental health service users to be included in personal health budget pilots
Responding to a letter from Terry Bamford, Director of Social Perspectives Network, the Department of Health confirmed that ‘it is expected that a number of the pilot sites will focus on people with mental health problems’.
Describing the response from mental health service users as ‘fantastic’ the letter set out the process: “ the next few months will see policy officials in the department working with a range of stakeholders to learn about existing experience of personal health budgets, and subsequently the design and establishment of the pilot scheme. This will feed into a publication expected at the end of the year. The Department will invite formal expressions of interest for the pilot scheme”
Terry Bamford said ‘ this is great news. We were concerned that the relatively slow take up of direct payments and individual budgets for mental health service users might lead to this group losing out on the personal health pilots. There is great potential for service users to reshape the pattern of mental health care.’
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