Think Local Act Personal Launches Phase One of Improving personal budgets for older people - A review

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Think Local Act Personal has today published a review of personal budgets for older people. This follows the 2012 ADASS report The Case for Tomorrow, which identified a range of implementation challenges and builds on issues identified by the Alzheimer's Society, in their report on personal budgets for people with dementia, "Getting Personal".

TLAP agreed to co-ordinate a review after meeting with the leads of the ADASS Older People's Policy Network. The aim was to look at the current personal budgets picture and identify how to improve implementation. The project steering group includes members from ADASS, Department of Health, Alzheimer's Society, Age UK, the Social Care Institute for Excellence and the Standing Commission on Carers, and made links to the Dementia Challenge.

Phase One of the project is now available and:
1. Reviews the literature and research on key challenges to successful implementation of personal budgets for older people. Reviews data on numbers and outcomes including from ADASS and Personal Budgets Outcomes Evaluation Tool (POET) surveys.
2. Gives an initial overview of promising practice responding to the challenges from literature and the ADASS survey.

Phase two of the project will focus on collecting and sharing the positive practice and is due for release in Autumn 2014.

Review co-authors Martin Routledge from Think Local Act Personal and Sarah Carr from SCIE said:

"Given the variation in which councils implement personal budgets, it feels very important to look more closely at the positive practice and promising approaches being used in some parts of the country, so that we can share these more widely. TLAP, working with SCIE and the steering group, are engaging with councils to explore their own activity and that by others including local third sector organisations."

"The challenges and positive possibilities identified by councils make an important contribution to the review. They help take us from research findings to real-world issues, perceptions and strategies. This project aims to provide practical advice and assistance that can be implemented and have the desired impact in the complex and often pressured circumstances that councils and their staff work within."

If you or your organisation have examples of positive practice, please contact chelsea.beckford@scie.org.uk by 1 March 2013.

Accompanying the Phase One report is the SCIE-produced, "Improving personal budgets for older people: A research overview", and University of Lancaster Centre for Disability Research's "Older people and personal budgets: A re-analysis of data from the National Personal Budget Survey 2011".