U.K. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has announced a voucher system for patients with chronic conditions. Under this system, patients will be given a personal health budget to purchase health care coverage for their chronic care needs, either from the NHS or from a private insurer. Each patient sets his or her budget in collaboration with a health care professional through a process that lays out the patient's health care and well-being needs, the optimal health outcomes for the patient, and how the money in the budget will be spent. The budget then must get approved by the patient's NHS primary care trust. The voucher program is first being piloted with 1,300 patients, but it is expected to be rolled out to 50,000 patients by 2014.
The pilot program will be assessed in order to see which populations the system is best suited for, how to best set the budget, and how to provide the best support to patients using personal health budgets. Secretary Lansley said that the voucher system would give patients more control over how their health care needs are met. The voucher system is part of the health reforms in the health bill that is currently being debated in the U.K. Parliament.
Sources:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/04/lansley-trumpets-patient-voucher-scheme
http://www.personalhealthbudgets.dh.gov.uk/About/faqs/