direct payments

SCIE report 63: Improving personal budgets for older people: a research overview

This short report is an evidence overview of key pieces of UK research between 2007 and 2012, which focused on the implementation and uptake of personal budgets and direct payments for older people (including those with dementia) in England. The report was published by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) in January 2013. It is not a systematic research review or an exhaustive examination of published research on the topic.

Progressing personalisation: a review of personal budgets and direct payments for carers

Review that explores implementation of personalisation for carers, focusing specifically on personal budgets and direct payments in relation to support provided to carers. It reviews evidence on current implementation and identifies areas for further policy and practice development in view of proposed changes to the law in the draft Care and Support Bill.

It examines:

  • What personalisation should mean for carers
  • Assessment and eligibility
  • Resource allocation
  • Support planning and how personal budgets are spent

Getting it together for mental health care: payment by results, personalisation and whole system working

Paper that considers how the two policy initiatives of Payment by Results (PbR) and personalisation need to be developed in tandem with one another, and in the context of whole system commissioning, if the aims of both are to be achieved.

It raises some questions for discussion about whether personalisation and PbR can meet the challenge of a more radical whole system approach and what impact success or failure will have on mental health services and outcomes for individuals. It concludes with some specific issues that need to be considered nationally and locally.

Whose risk is it anyway? Risk and regulation in an era of personalisation

Paper that argues that ‘risk’ is often perceived negatively by people using services (used as an excuse used for stopping them doing something) – but risk needs to be shared between the person taking the risk and the system that is trying to support them; states that although some people fear that personalisation may increase risk, it could help people to be safer by putting them more in control of their lives, helping them plan ahead, and focusing our safeguarding expertise on those who really need it; and considers the fact that in an era of personalisation, approaches to risk and regulat