How care providers can help negotiate the maze of personal budgets

Colin Angel is policy and campaigns director at United Kingdom Homecare Association (UKCHA) and a social care fellow at the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence. Colin's blog featured on the Guardian Social Care Network website:

"Individual service funds offer a way through the maze of personal budgeting, enabling users to do more with less. Photograph: Graeme Robertson
The demand for personalised care services which champion individual choice has never been more pressing. Regrettably, this demand for costly bespoke care has risen just at the point when public spending is severely constrained.
Individual service funds offer a unique opportunity to do more with less: cutting out unnecessary commissioning work, and concentrating on what really matters to people who use social care services.

An individual service fund (ISF) is one way of managing a service user's personal budget. The commissioning body - usually a local authority - pays the budget in instalments directly to a care provider. The provider assumes responsibility for agreeing a plan of care directly with the service user, and is free to adjust the plan over time to meet changing needs and preferences while sticking within the budget. The provider may deliver the required services itself, or commission them from other organisations and the local community."

Read the full article on the Guardian Social Care Network