Personal Health Budgets: an ethnographic study V 1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exploring how Personal Health Budgets are working in practice to deliver choice and control for people with complex healthcare needs: an ethnographic case studies.
IRAS ID
224464
Contact name
Editor Musekiwa
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Personal health budgets (PHBs) are designed to offer "choice, control and flexibility" and thus are expected to deliver better health outcomes for people with complex healthcare needs. However, conditions in which PHBs work in practice are more complex than that and how people exercise choice and control is not that simplistic. What does offering choice and control in the context of the NHS mean for different groups of people? This project aims to explore and highlight user experience in relation to the implementation and impact of PHBs.
As part of the post graduate research doctoral study, the research student will be supported by supervisors to conduct an ethnographic study to explore in-depth the lived experience of managing a PHB.
The research will recruit a maximum of 10 adults with complex healthcare needs who are using a PHB alongside their care-givers. As an observer, the research student will conduct field work to study the daily living experience of using a PHB. The study will be a series of observations, interactions and conversations held with individual participants and their care-givers. The study will take place in people's own homes and communities in the UK.
The project is self-funded. It aims to produce findings that are of relevance in improving processes and outcomes, influence policy, support advocacy and decision making. It will be of importance to service users, commissioners of care services, policy makers, management, entrepreneurs and academics working in the field of social policy and service management.
REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
17/IEC08/0034
Date of REC Opinion
4 Jan 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion