The individual as service integrator: Experience from the personal health budget pilot in the English NHS

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the potential for service integration by focusing at the level of the individual rather than through structural integration or care coordination. The paper illustrates the potential for integration through the experience of the personal health budgets pilot programme.

This paper is based on a review of the experience of personal health budget pilot sites, drawing on the national evaluation of the pilot programme and the author's experience of working with pilot sites between 2010 and 2013. It also draws on the experience of similar programmes in the USA.

Personal health budgets support integration in two distinct ways. First, they can support the delivery of more holistic, whole‐person care in line with the principles of shared decision making. Second, by bringing personal budgets in social care and personal health budgets together, they can provide a vehicle for integration across health and social care systems. If integration starts from, and responds to, what matters most to individuals rather than with the development of joint structures and processes, the result is more likely to be integrated care.

This is one of only a small number of papers that discusses the scope for personal health budgets to improve the integration of care. Integration between the NHS and social care, in particular, has been identified as a central priority for the NHS.