Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many patients are currently in receipt of an NHS personal health budget; and what was the total cost of that scheme for each of the last three years for which figures are available.

28,040 individuals were in receipt of a personal health budget as of 2017-18 Q4.

In terms of the total cost of personal health budgets for each of the last three years, these figures are not held centrally, as it is clinical commissioning groups who have the duty to commission and deliver personal health budgets.

Personal health budgets use existing National Health Service money that would already have been spent on an individual, in a different way that meets the individual’s identified health needs. Evidence suggests that at worst, personal health budgets are cost-neutral, whilst demonstrating an ability to improve outcomes and enhance quality of life.