Gearing Up for Personal Health Budgets
Third sector programme (round 2)
Invitation to apply
We are pleased to invite invitations from third sector, voluntary and community
sector organisations to apply:
 To join the Gearing up for Personal Health Budgets Programme. Please
complete the accompanying application form
 To be a national or regional mentoring organisation. Please submit a
proposal outlining how you will meet the criteria outlined below.
Applications and proposals should be returned to
england.personalhealthbudgets@nhs.net by 12 noon on Monday 1 December
2014.
Background
Personal Health Budgets, If you are going to do it …do it right
The personal health budget programme was launched by the Department of Health
in 2009 and an independent evaluation was commissioned alongside the pilot
programme. The evaluation of the pilot programme showed that the benefits of
personal health budgets depend on how they were introduced. For best results
people should know the budget up front with advice and support available; choice
and flexibility over how to spend budget, choice on how it is managed.
To work well, personal health budgets need:
 good support from all parts of the system; and

co-production with people with direct experience.
In April 2014 round one of the Gearing Up for Personal Health Budgets Programme
invited third sector, community and voluntary sector organisations to bid to take part
in a development programme to support them to offer advice and guidance to people
(adults eligible for NHS Continuing Healthcare and children in receipt of continuing
care) who wanted to find out more about personal health budgets. Thirty one
organisations were awarded a place on the development programme, and a small
grant. Three of these organisations acted in a mentoring capacity to the other
organisations.
We would now like to invite organisations to bid for a second round with 40 places. In
addition we would like to invite organisations to bid to offer mentoring support to the
Gearing Up projects. We are looking for approximately 5 organisations to offer
mentoring to local projects across a patch or region and one organisation to offer
mentoring and development support to the programme nationally. Successful bids to
join the programme or become a mentoring organisations will be awarded a grant of
£10k.
Aims and objectives of the programme
The Gearing Up Programme has been set up to equip local third sector
organisations with more knowledge and connections around personal health budgets
so they can be ready to tell people about them as more people become interested.
The programme will help ensure:
•
That voluntary sector organisations are able to help people and families get
good sense of what should be expected from the NHS, and equip them with
the information and policy to help them get a personal health budget in line
with established national best practice
•
That, for a small number of people and where necessary, voluntary sector
organisations can support eligible people to get a personal health budget,
including offer some advocacy and mediation support where needed.
•
That voluntary sector organisations work to develop productive relationships
with CCGs and support them to introduce personal health budgets well.
•
Equal access to personal health budgets. We are looking for a number of
applicants to focus on people with protected characteristics under the Equality
Act 2010. The work would include improving information and raising
awareness with those particular groups. Examples of previous work in this
have included people with learning disabilities, people from BME groups,
people from traveller communities, homeless people, and ex-military
personnel. We would like to see further development work with these groups,
and would also welcome other suggestions to fill in gaps such as - work with
LGBT people, people with HIV/AIDS, and young carers, older people with
dementia, young men at risk at suicide.
•
That voluntary sector organisations support the development of local
partnerships. We have asked Gearing Up participants to get in touch with their
local CCG personal health budget leads. Through the Gearing Up
programme, the voluntary sector organisations will be well placed to provide
support to individuals who are eligible for personal health budgets. This
additional capacity is intended to support CCGs when introducing personal
health budgets
Role of mentors
Regional mentors: Gearing Up organisations are being supported by regional
mentoring organisations who help them to get started, share learning via a learning
network and support them to work through challenges. Mentoring organisations will
also contribute to the develop programme.
High quality care for all, now and for future generations
National mentor: The Gearing Up Programme and constituent organisations will be
supported by an organisation which can offer development support, capacity and
mentoring to NHS England in running the programme. This will involve contributing
to a steering group, planning and contributing to the national develop support
programme of events and resources.
Selection process for Gearing Up Programme
Applicants will be asked to complete an application to outline how they meet the
criteria for selection. A panel will then meet to score applications.
Applications are welcome from across all of England however we would like to
extend the geographical coverage of organisations funded so far. To this end we
would welcome applications from:
London
North London
West London
Midlands and
East
Bedfordshire
Derbyshire
Hertfordshire
Lincolnshire
Norfolk
Nottinghamshire
Shropshire
Staffordshire
North
South
North East England
Cumbria
Gtr Manchester
Merseyside
Berkshire
Cornwall
Dorset
Hampshire
Kent
Sussex
Surrey
Selection process for regional and national mentoring organisations
Organisations who would like to bid for a grant to be a regional mentoring
organisation to the Gearing Up projects should submit a proposal (no more than 3
pages of A4) outlining how they meet the criteria outlined below.
Please also include:
1. Information to confirm the status of your organisation e.g. whether you are a
registered charity, community interest company etc.
2. A reference from a previous statutory funding organisation e.g. Local authority
or NHS organisation.
3. A copy of your annual accounts for the last 12 months
4. Contact details for your organisation including its registered name, main point
of contact for this bid; postal address; email address; phone number and
website if applicable.
Selection criteria for grants to Gearing Up organisations
Funding to the organisations to become involved in the programme will be
awarded on the basis of:
1. Demonstration that they as an organisation are the natural place for people
eligible for Continuing Health Care funding to turn to for help and information
– for example these could be Disabled Peoples User Led Organisations, or
High quality care for all, now and for future generations
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
voluntary sector organisations focussed around a ‘group’ or condition or a
community interest company.
Understanding of self-directed support, personalisation in health and social
care including its history and values base.
Demonstrate that they have the skills and capacity to offer information, advice
and guidance to people interested in Personal Health Budgets. They have the
capacity and flexibility to be able to offer advice and guidance to a wide range
of people and be able to support the development of personal health budgets
beyond NHS Continuing Healthcare (to reflect the local CCG offer as they
extend the availability of personal health budgets).
Track record of helpful support to and relationships with clinical
commissioning groups and local authorities. Experience of supporting the
implementation of personalisation in health and social care at a local level.
Proposals for how they could support people, and ability to track this support
to see if it enables people to get personal health budgets and better lives, and
report this back so we know what the funding is achieving, and can learn from
it.
Be linked into or have access to networks which connect with people who
would benefit from, but are least likely to access personal health budgets.
For those applications focusing on people with protected characteristics under
the Equality Act 2010, applications should demonstrate how you would reach
out to the specific groups and how you would develop local capacity to offer
advice and guidance.
In addition decisions will be made to ensure a good geographical spread. The
organisations will be required to take part in the development programme; share
learning and materials developed; report on progress, be involved with mentoring
support opportunities. We would highly recommend that you talk to your local CCG
before putting in your bid to understand their local offer around personal health
budgets.
Selection criteria for regional mentoring organisations
Funding to the mentoring organisations to become involved in the programme will
be awarded on the basis of:
1 Demonstration of an established track record in offering information, advice
and guidance to people eligible for Continuing Healthcare funding who are
interested in taken up a personal health budget and other long term
conditions.
2 Understanding of self-directed support, personalisation in health and social
care including its history and values base.
3 Demonstrate that they have the skills and capacity to offer mentoring support
to Gearing Up organisations.
High quality care for all, now and for future generations
4 Track record of helpful support to and relationships with clinical
commissioning groups and local authorities. Experience of supporting the
implementation of personalisation in health and social care at a local level.
5 Proposals for how they could support Gearing Up organisations and people,
and report this back so we know what the funding is achieving, and can learn
from it.
Selection criteria for a national mentoring organisation
Funding to the mentoring organisation to become involved in the programme will
be awarded on the basis of:
1. In-depth understanding of Continuing Healthcare funding and personal health
budgets and other long term conditions.
2 Understanding of self-directed support, personalisation in health and social
care including its history and values base.
3 Demonstrate that they have the skills and capacity to offer development
support, capacity and mentoring to NHS England in running the programme.
Track record of development support health and social care/statutory
organisations at a national level, particularly in relation to the implementation
of personal health budgets. Experience of supporting organisations to
implement personalisation in health and social care at a local level.
4 Proposals for how they could support NHS England/Gearing Up
organisations and people, and report this back so we know what the funding
is achieving, and can learn from it.
High quality care for all, now and for future generations