Author Archives: Robyn Chappell

NHS England has launched Universal Personalised Care – the action plan for rolling out personalised care across England. Personalised care will benefit up to 2.5 million people, giving them the same choice and control over their mental and physical health that they have come to expect in every other aspect of their life.

Importantly, a member of the NHS England Personalised Care Strategic Co-production Group, Robyn Chappell, was invited to participate at the NHS England Public Board, to speak about what the policy meant to her, as someone with lived experience of a personal health budget. Her presence and input were important as a public representation of the shift in relationship at the heart of personalised care: people with lived experience of long-term health conditions and disabilities move to becoming valued partners and active participants, rather than the passive recipients of health care. This is the first time that anybody with lived experience has been invited to speak at the NHS England Public Board.

Universal Personalised Care: Implementing the Comprehensive Model

“For many years the NHS has talked about the need to shift towards a more personalised approach to health and care. A one-size-fits-all health and care system simply cannot meet the increasing complexity of people’s needs and expectations.

The NHS Long Term Plan is clear the time has come to give people the same choice and control over their mental and physical health that they have come to expect in every other part of their life. As well as being morally the right thing to do, a growing body of evidence shows that better outcomes and experiences, as well as reduced health inequalities, are possible when people have the opportunity to actively shape their care and support…

This shift represents a new relationship between people, professionals and the health and care system. It provides a positive change in power and decision making that enables people to feel informed, have a voice, be heard and be connected to each other and their communities.”

January 2019

Hearing from people who have real, lived experience of having a personal health budget, helps people take the leap into something new, so peoplehub and NHS England have created a way that personal health budget holders can share their experiences with each other through social media.

On 9th May 2018, peoplehub, in partnership with NHS England’s Lived experience team, successfully launched #myPHBstory at an exciting event for people from across the country, who kick-started the twitter activity. 

Where does this idea come from?

In 2017, NHS England commissioned an independent survey of how personal health budgets were being implemented. This was completed by nearly 400 people who held a personal health budget and people who were considering a personal health budget.

• 83% of the people who already had a personal health budget said they found out about them through a non-professional route.
• 54% of people who didn’t already have a personal health budget said that more than anything else, they wanted to hear other people’s personal health budget stories when applying.

This hashtag has 3 aims:

• to connect people who have a personal health budget;
• share images of what’s possible with a personal health budget;
• start to build a community of experience independent of any organisational structure.

How can you join in the discussions and stories?

#myPHBstory is live and is the space for sharing personal health budget stories. Here you will find people with personal health budgets describing how their lives have been changed for the better.

Need to know who to follow? Look through the tweets in the timeline, if anything takes your interest, reply or follow that person to keep track of their story.

Please join us in the #myPHBstory space – see you there!

May 2018