1. The POET Surveys
The POET (Personalisation Outcome Evaluation Tool) surveys for personal budget holders and for carers of personal budget holders in social care have been developed over several years as a way for personal budget holders and carers to report their experiences of personal budgets.
The latest versions of the POET surveys for social care were adapted for this project to try and suit the circumstances of people using personal health budgets and their carers.

2. Away from time task cost measure defined and reported to the centre.
Towards capturing understanding and sharing experiences of people locally.

3. The POET contains questions, about:
Equalities monitoring questions (gender, age, disability, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation).
Support planning (Who helped people plan, were views taken into account).
How supportive the council is throughout the personal budget process.
The personal budget (which council provides it, how long the person has held the budget, previous social services support, how the budget is managed, the amount of the budget).
Whether the personal budget has made a difference (either positive or negative) across 14 aspects of the person’s life.
People’s goals and whether they are reaching them.
Space for people to write in their opinions on personal budgets and the survey questionnaire.

4. Type of Disability (carers)
Ethnicity
Gender
Age
Sexual orientation
Religion
Social care need
Second national POET survey:
2,022 personal budget holders (including 20 councils with more than 50 respondents) 191 (9%)
1,386 carers (including 15 councils with more than 50 respondents)

5. Who took part in the Health POET Surveys
In total, 195 personal health budget holders and 117 carers across 12 sites completed the POET survey and gave their agreement for the information to be used.
Personal health budget holders reported a wide range of primary long-term conditions for which they held their budget, most commonly:
COPD/emphysema (14.5%),
MS/MND (12.8%),
Mental health condition (12.3%),
Learning disabilities (7.8%),
Stroke (5.6%)
Tetraplegic conditions (5.6%).

6. Know amount of PB
The amount of money
Got help to plan PB
Views included in plan
How the money was held (Budget type)
Get information and advice
Assess your needs
Know how you could and could not spend PB
Be in control of how PB is spent
Plan & manage support
Get support I want
Change my support
Choose services
Complain make your views known

7. Mental wellbeing
Physical health
Independence
Getting and keeping a paid job
Volunteering taking part in community
Choosing where to live and who to live with
Control over life
Feeling safe
Relationships with friends
Relationships with family
Control over support
Getting support you need
Being supported with dignity
Relationships with paid supporters

8. For the free text responses, we used themes that had emerged from the first National personal budget survey. The list of themes was updated to reflect free text comments included in this years survey.
Each quote was then examined and assigned to one or more themes depending on what the person had written – for most comments a judgement was also made on whether the comment was mainly positive, or neutral in relation to the theme.

9. How people held the money
People most commonly managed their personal health budget through direct payments paid to them (30.8%),
Followed by direct payments looked after by a broker (29.7%).
Council or NHS-managed personal health budgets (13.3%).
Service provider-managed personal health budgets (12.3%).
Direct payments looked by a family member or friend (11.3%).
Some people did not know how their personal health budget was managed (5.6%).
There were no gender or age differences in usage of any type of personal health budget, or any differences according to people’s self-reported health

11. Do people know how much is in their personal health Budget?
A substantial majority of personal health budget holders (80.0%) reported having been told their weekly support costs.

14. Social care Budgets for people with mental health needs

15. Views included in planning

16. How easy was the process

17. Outcomes for people

18. Relationship between process and outcomes
Factors robustly associated with positive outcomes for personal health budget holders included:
Holding the personal health budget in the form of a direct payment paid to family/friends
knowing the amount of the personal health budget
Having help to plan from family/friends
Feeling that their views were fully included in their support plan
Making most aspects of the personal health budget process easier.

19. Were your views included in the support planning ?
Factors associated with positive outcomes for people holding personal budgets
Were your views included in the support planning ?
Your physical health
Your mental wellbeing
Being in control of life
Being independent
Being in control of support
Getting support you need
Being supported with dignity
Feeling safe
Choose where/ who live with
Get/ keep a paid job
Volunteering & helping community
Relations with family
Relations with friends
Relations with paid supporters OP
3.41
2.71
3.55
4.08
4.39
4.33
2.95
3.68
1.83
1.59
2.18
1.93
2.65 LD
2.07
3.5
6.54
3.72
4.83
3.47
3.64
2.04
1.98
4.17
2.39
2.13
2.58
2.57 MH
1.8
5.29
8.2
3.39
4.59
6.21
6.33
2.49
2.09
3.89
3.48
8.13
8.26
2.12 PD
1.56
2.42
3.22
2.34
2.11
2.63
1.74
0.91
1.25
1.14
1.49
2.53

24. 488 personal budget holders wrote in comments

25. Free text comments experience of personal budget process vs Impact on Life (national)

26. Goals people with personal budget set in their plan

27. Have you achieved your goal yet ?

28. Things staff Commented on about