Older people will be given budgets to buy personal care

doi:10.1136/bmj.39426.592176.DB

BMJ 2007;335:1231 (15 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.39426.592176.DB

News

Older people will be given budgets to buy personal care

Zosia Kmietowicz

¹ London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A new way of funding social care in England was announced bythe government this week. In future, individual budgets willbe given directly to older people and people with disabilitiesso that they can buy their own personal care.

In what will be seen by many as a monumental shift away fromtop-down management from Whitehall, Alan Johnson, the secretaryof state for health, said, "We want to give people more controlover their services in order to increase their quality of life."

He announced £520m ( ${euro}$ 720m; $1100m) of ringfenced money,half of which would come out of the health budget, to supportcouncils to redesign their services to better meet the needsof people who have to buy care.

He described the concordat Putting People First as "groundbreaking"for being the first time that central government has instigateda major shift in the way public services are . . . [Full text of this article]

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