This Independent survey, first run in 2018 and repeated again in 2019, is part of a wider NHS England and NHS Improvement strategy to understand progress and hear people’s perceptions of their local personal health budget/integrated personal budget and personal wheelchair budget offer. NHS England and NHS Improvement intends to use the findings from the survey to help shape national and local improvement activity.

The 2019 personal health budget/integrated personal budget questionnaire was adapted from the 2018 survey, commissioned by NHS England and executed by Quality Health, and which was coproduced with people with lived experience of personal health budgets/integrated personal budgets.

There were 419 responses to the personal health budget/integrated personal budget survey in total. This is an increase over the number of responses received to the 2018 survey, which was 390.

2019 Survey

Personal health budget/integrated personal budget survey respondents rated their experience of the outcome and what they have achieved by having a personal health budget/integrated personal budget at an average of 7.4 out of 10. Their experience of getting a personal health budget/integrated personal budget was slightly lower, with an average rating of 6.0 out of 10.

The survey highlighted an association between strength of positive experience and likelihood of recommendation, suggesting that quality is a key factor in achieving the national ambition for personal health budgets/integrated personal budgets. People were overwhelmingly likely to recommend a personal health budget/integrated personal budget to somebody else, and a high proportion of people felt the care planning process worked well:

• 78% of personal health budget/integrated personal budget survey respondents said they were extremely likely or likely to recommend a budget to someone else
• 85% of personal health budget/integrated personal budget survey respondents said they were involved as much as they wanted to be in creating their personalised care and support plan, definitely or to some extent
• 89% of personal health budget/integrated personal budget survey respondents said they had achieved what they wanted to as a result of their plan, to some extent or completely

Respondents were asked how long they had had the budget for, and 25% of respondents said they had had their personal health budget/integrated personal budget holders for less than a year. 82% of these respondents said they were extremely likely or likely to recommend a budget to someone else.

Some of the findings have provided key areas for improvement:

• 18% of personal health budget/integrated personal budget survey respondents said that they were not able to choose the option they wanted to manage the budget
• 27% of personal health budget/integrated personal budget survey respondents said there were unreasonable restrictions on how they were allowed to spend their budget
• 42% of personal health budget/integrated personal budget survey respondents said that it was quite difficult or very difficult to find more information about personal health budgets/integrated personal budgets

Though the survey methodology precludes direct year on year comparisons, the figures are broadly similar to those in the 2018 survey results summary report.

Survey Report Downloads

2019 Report
Quality Health PHB Survey 2019 Written Report

2018 Report
Quality Health PHB Survey 2018 Written Report