This guest blog post is from Richard Lamplough from A Potential Diamond, one of our newest Stay Connected members.     I sat in on an Apprenticeship interview at the beginning of the week supporting a young man with Asperger’s Syndrome; let’s call him Andy.   The employer and, in this case, the Apprenticeship provider, was a large FE College in the South East of England. Andrew had the suitable qualifications for the post (working in office administration)…

Thirty one third, community and voluntary sector organisations have been working with NHS Engand and In Control as part of a national development programme on personal health budgets.   The programme’s aim has been to help equip them with the knowledge and expertise to inform their local communities about personal health budgets.   Participating organisations have also been helping to support eligible people to discuss the option of a personal health budget with their local…

A young man from Scotland being allocated an individual budget that enabled him to buy an accordion and lessons, which subsequently led to him being offered a place at the Glasgow School of Music, is just one of the team’s highlights from 2014.   When we asked the In Control team to reflect a little on the past 12 months and what their highlights were, we weren’t short of responses, here’s just a brief selection…

There are now 149 adult and children’s services as well as clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), (CCGs) signed up to measure the impact personal budgets and education, health and care plans are having on people’s lives.   They will be using POET, the Personal Outcomes Evaluation Tool, which has been developed over a number of years with Lancaster University. POET was originally developed for adult social care but it has recently been adapted so that children’s…

In Control publishes a report with Lancaster University using the Personal Outcome Evaluation Tool (POET) to measure the impact of education, health and care plans for children and young people with special education needs and disabilities. The report features the results of surveys completed from across 18 different local authority children’s services who participated in the designing and testing of the tool, surveys were completed by 355 parents/carers and 36 young people who have experience…

In December 2013, CCGs and trusts in 14 places across the country came together to begin implementing personal health budgets in mental health.  In March this year, the same people met for the last time to review progress.  In the intervening time, a number of people’s lives have changed for the better as a result of getting a personal health budget. A man from Devon with a history of overdosing now uses his personal health…

A new set of papers from In Control challenging all those leading integration work across public services to maintain and increase the central focus on people and their communities. It’s all too easy when faced with structural change and transformation of culture to focus on system and process; we know though that this will only bred complexity and bureaucracy. These papers stand back from the surge to build new systems and explain a focus around…

Gavin Croft and Karen Saville talk about their ordinary life and personal health budgets Gavin.   Karen attended a Heathwatch event in St Helens and talked about their experiences of keeping their lives ordinary and not system led. Watch here:   Gavin Croft and Karen Saville Croft Talk about Their Experiences Part 1   Gavin Croft and Karen Saville Croft Talk about Their Experiences Part 2   Julie Stansfield CEO for In Control also talked…