Being able to access a choice of treatments and support and being able to be involved in joint-care planning are key to improving experience of mental health care.

Today Mind publishes a new report, Personal health budgets – getting them right in mental health (pdf).

Mind conducted research with people with mental health problems to find out what they want from the services and support they use to manage their mental health, and what role personal health budgets might play in improving their experience of care and their health and wellbeing outcomes.

People with mental health problems told us that being able to access a choice of treatments and support and being able to be involved in joint-care planning are key to improving their experience of mental health care. These ideas are central to personal health budgets.

Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of Mind said:
"Mind supports the principles behind personal health budgets of greater choice and control, a shared decision-making approach to care planning, and a focus on patient-defined outcomes and flexibility in how to achieve them.

However, Mind has identified a number of barriers that threaten the effectiveness of the policy for people with mental health problems and has produced a series of recommendations for Government and NHS bodies to overcome them.

We also know that some people with mental health problems will not want a personal health budget, so it is crucial that enough existing services are provided to meet their needs."

A personal health budget is an amount of money to support your individual healthcare and wellbeing needs. People eligible for a budget, together with the local NHS team, develop a care plan to help decide their health and wellbeing goals and to identify how the budget will be spent to enable them to reach those goals and keep them healthy and safe.

Personal health budgets could be use to pay for a range of different approaches, including non-medical treatment, as long as they are agreed by the local NHS team and are designed to meet health and wellbeing goals.

For more information on Mind's work on personal health budgets, please contact Vicki Ensor.