Position Summary
Government has demonstrated that it is committed to increasing the choice and control people with long term conditions have over their own care, and the need for tailored, personalised service provision.
Individual Budgets, also referred to as Personal Budgets in healthcare, could be one of several mechanisms that assist in personalising care for people with long term conditions like diabetes, particularly in enabling choice over interventions and support for self care, such as weight management or structured education. However the complex and unpredictable nature of overall clinical care needs means that Individual Budgets are unlikely to be suited to this area of diabetes care delivery.
Not all people will wish to use a mechanism such as Individual Budgets and healthcare provision for all people with long term conditions must be of a high quality regardless of whether people choose to use a facility such as individual budgets. Underpinning the development of Individual Budgets must be the care planning process and the availability and provision of high quality information to support people with diabetes to make informed choices and decisions about their care.
Diabetes UK welcomes the government’s approach in consulting with stakeholders early in the development of Individual Budgets and would urge government to continue to engage with stakeholders, including Diabetes UK, over the detail as they continue to develop. Diabetes UK also welcomes the recognition of the need to pilot before rolling out such a mechanism.
The period of time for roll out must allow for the lessons to be learned from the evaluation prior to launch. The Year of Care programme could provide the infrastructure to support pilots of Individual Budgets within diabetes care.
For the full position statement, please download the document in the Downloads box.
September 2008