St. Rocco's Hospice at Home team have been working with Warrington Clinical Commissioning Group to implement personal healthcare budgets for patients at end of life in order to give them greater choice over the care that they receive.

A personal health budget allows people to manage their healthcare and support such things as treatments, equipment and personal care in a way that suits them.

A personal health budget is an amount of money to support a patient’s health and wellbeing needs, which is planned and agreed between them (or someone who represents them), and their local NHS team. It is not new money, but it may mean spending money differently so that they can get the care that they need in a way that works best for them.

During his trip to Warrington, James met the staff from our Hospice at Home team who have been instrumental in implementing personal health budgets in end of life care and helping to make the pilot programme successful. The work that they have undertaken with the team from Warrington CCG was recently recognised with a 'Compassionate Patient Care Award from the HSJ (Health Service Journal).

Pam Massey, Chief Executive at St. Rocco’s, said: “I would like to acknowledge the hard work and commitment of the Hospice at Home team at St. Rocco’s in introducing Personal Health Care Budgets for patients approaching end of life in Warrington. To make personal healthcare budgets successful requires skilled people to sit down and have those important conversations with patients. It also relies on having a network of services outside of the NHS available for patients to be able to make different choices. St. Rocco’s, a charitable organisation, is able to provide these kinds of services, using a skilled workforce made up of professionals and also volunteers who have been specially trained and who are part of a valued team.” 

Of those with a personal health budget for end of life care, none of the patients designed their care in a similar way to the ‘traditional’ offer and 83% of end of life patients with a personal health budge died in their preferred place – compared with around 62% of people with a ‘traditionally’ commissioned package.

"Making personal healthcare budgets work in Warrington has been a massive partnership effort together with St. Rocco's," explained Sarah Leach, Personal Healthcare Budget Implementation Manager, "We have great trust in the St. Rocco's team that benefits the delivery of personal health budgets for end of life care in our town for patients in the last weeks and days of their lives"

James Sanderson also acknowledged the input from the team at St. Rocco's 

"The service you are offering and all the ways you are connecting with communities is clearly having an amazing impact," he said.