Our Information, Advice and Guidance service supports clients that have their NHS Direct Payment as a Personal Health Budgets (PHB) to recruit and employ their own Personal Care Assistants. For Rachel, Enham Trust’s PHB service has meant that she can employ her Personal Care Assistants, and feel more confident.

Here, Rachel tells her story;

My name is Rachel and I am 23. I currently live at home with my foster Mum and Dad, Dolly and Kevin. I have a busy social life with my friends and I also volunteer at the Dog’s Trust and at a local school. However, I do have some health issues that I need to manage alongside everything I do.

“Before my Personal Health Budget (PHB) was in place, my Mum and I both felt drained and that we were suffocating each other. We didn’t really have any support until a community nurse arranged some support from a local care agency which helped. However, because there were lots of different carers who arrived at different times, there wasn’t really any continuity of my care and it was difficult for me to feel confident with them.

Getting support

“At the end of 2017, I was given a PHB by Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). This is where I met PHB Advisor Lorraine at Enham Trust, who provided the support and advice we needed around putting the PHB in place and various aspects of becoming an employer.

“This PHB meant that I could employ my own team of Personal Care Assistants to give me some ongoing daily care and support that I needed. I now have a great team who I feel confident with, which has helped with my overall health and happiness.

Feeling thankful

“Lorraine has been and is brilliant! Any questions we have she is on the end of the phone or email. It’s very good to know the support is there. The difference now is that I have Personal Care Assistants; I am happier and my family can all have a little break and time to charge their batteries. It’s like they say, you can’t know what you have until it happens and I am thankful that this happened for all of us. I would definitely recommend a PHB and Enham Trust.”

Thanks for reading this…

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