Personal Budgets, Choice and Health

Debating personal health budgets

Personal health budgets (PHBs) were piloted in the National Health Service (NHS) in England between 2009 and 2012 and were found to have greater positive effects on quality of life and psychological well-being for those with mental health problems than commissioned service, as well as reducing their use of unplanned care. The government intends to extend PHBs in England for long-term conditions...

Personal Budgets and Health: a review of the evidence

Personal health budgets: a new way of accessing complementary therapies?

The popularity and use of complementary and alternative therapies and medicines (CAM) has remained high in the UK and many other countries over at least the last two decades. Access to such modalities via publicly funded health and welfare systems has remained very limited over the same period. Personal health budgets, designed to offer significant control and personal choice over health care, ...

Personal Carbon Budgets for Transport

Australia’s transport greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are high and continue to grow, with current levels approximately one-third higher than in 1990 and increasing by around 1% annually. Efforts to curtail and reverse this growth have not been successful to date. In recent times, national policy development and debate has centred on market-based mechanisms to reduce GHG emissions, namely an emis...

Personal health records: the people's choice?

Information technology (IT), especially in the form of an electronic health record (EHR), is touted by many as a key component of meaningful improvement in health care delivery and outcomes. A personal health record (PHR) may be an element of an EHR or a stand-alone record. Proponents of PHRs see them as tools that will improve consumers' ability to manage their care and will also enlist consum...