The DHSC is consulting on proposals to give more people the right to have personal health budgets and integrated personal budgets.

Currently, the only people who have a specific ‘right to have’ a personal health budget are adults in receipt of NHS continuing healthcare or children receiving continuing care. The number of personal health budgets has been rising year on year, and in the first nine months of 2017/18 nearly 23,000 people received one.

The consultation, which closes on June 8, proposes to extend the right to have a personal health budget to further groups of people:

• People with ongoing social care needs, who also make regular use of relevant NHS services
• People eligible for Section 117 aftercare services, and people of all ages with ongoing mental health needs who make regular use of community based NHS mental health services
• People leaving the Armed Forces, who are eligible for ongoing NHS services
• People with a learning disability, autism or both, who are eligible for ongoing NHS care
• People who access wheelchair services whose posture and mobility needs impact their wider health and social care needs.