Personal health budgets to drive decommissioning of NHS services

Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) will need to decommission unpopular services to make personal health budgets work when they are rolled out to all patients with long-term conditions in 2015, a leading think-tank has warned.

The Nuffield Trust says services that are not chosen by budget-holders will have to be decommissioned, but done at a pace that prevents the market from shrinking.
The think-tank's new report, entitled personal health budgets: challenges for commissioners and policy-makers, also says there will need to be new infrastructure around budget setting and care planning, but this will need to be found in existing budgets.

The personal health budgets scheme is due to be rolled out by April 2014 to 56,000 patients on continuing care and be offered to anyone with a long-term condition who could bene?t by 2015. The full article is available on the Pulse website