>>Dan McAleavy: My job is a Wheelchair Personalisation Support Officer, and that involves really
helping people get an even more bespoke wheelchair from the Wheelchair Service.
>>Receptionist: Morning Dan!
>>Dan McAleavy: That means instead of just going in to the Wheelchair Service and getting one that's
comfortable for your condition, you actually think more about what you actually want your
wheelchair to enable you to do in your day-to-day life, and how can that make you more independent.
So which one is it you're going to email? Yeah, I don't think it's actually been attached.
OK.
>> Donna Miles: As the lead commissioner for promoting independence, I actually come from
a background in adult social care where direct payments and personal budgets have been around
for significantly longer than they have in the NHS. I saw a real opportunity to incorporate
the learning that I've had from my local authority experience into improving our wheelchair services
for our citizens.
We did a lot of mapping of what the process is and how people access the service. We also
engaged with some of our wheelchair users to find out what their experience was of our
service - and actually it was quite poor. There were long delays, there was duplication
of assessments and exclusion criteria which just didn't make any sense.
>>Dan McAleavy: With the old system you might go to the Wheelchair Service in Gloucestershire
and get a wheelchair that was just to do with your condition, rather than thinking about
what you wanted your wheelchair to do outside.
The new system - Personal Wheelchair Budgets - that means you would have a more detailed
conversation with your occupational therapist or therapist about what you want your wheelchair
to enable you to do, and it encourages the service user to take more responsibility and
also the therapist to think more carefully about the whole wheelchair process.
>>Neil Francis: I would say Gloucestershire services as a whole have been more (about)
treating the person as an individual and looking at everything surrounding them. It's been
a lot more open and inclusive of your whole life, rather than what's wrong at that moment.
The voucher scheme gave you a certain amount with a limited choice, and the Personal Wheelchair
Budget, it's taken into account what actually fulfils my needs and not just (what) gets
me from A to B.
Hi Neil, how you doing? Yeah, good mate.
Nice to see you again. Yeah, you too.
It does give you more control in what you're looking for with support as well: so not just
saying 'oh, I want a Ferrari wheelchair coz' it goes fast, but looking at does it make
your life better. Does it give you more independence, does it give you that freedom that you need?
Whether that's freedom from pain, or freedom from environment, terrain, weather conditions,
whatever, and the Personal Wheelchair Budget scheme has opened that up and allowed me to
believe it's possible.
>>Donna Miles: We want to give the people in Gloucestershire choice and control. We
want to take direct payments personal health budgets that one step further under the guise
of integrated personalised commissioning. The wheelchair pathway was ripe for review
- it was clunky, it was duplication of effort, and actually by bringing together health and
social care we have been able to make a fundamental difference to our service here.
>>Dan McAleavy: Hopefully with this new system it will mean that the wheelchair user gets
a more person-centred service, a more rounded service every time they go. And therefore
you have happy people, which means a good NHS.