Older people, disabled children, people with serious mental illnesses or serious learning disabilities will be offered personal budgets to choose their own care services, according to comments from NHS Chief Executive Simon Stevens in the Guardian today.
Alzheimer’s Society comment:
‘Pooling health care personal budgets is a massive step forward for integrated health and care for people living with dementia. The current system is fragmented, in many cases not user-friendly and often failing to need the needs and expectations of an ageing population. Managing health and social care in silos is simply letting people with dementia down.’
‘For this ambition to become a reality we need to fix the structural problems of the system. One in three people over the age of 65 will develop dementia so their needs must be at the core of the NHS and social care system.’
George McNamara
Head of Policy and Public Affairs
Alzheimer’s Society