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The North West London PHB Support Service is here to ensure all individuals in receipt of Personal Health Budget (PHB) funding are supported through their individual PHB journey.
On this site you will find a range of information and resources designed to help you manage your PHB in line with your individual support plan and PHB agreement.
In addition, PPL have a team of Independent Living Advisors (ILAs) who are able to offer support and advice which will help you to get the most from your PHB.
From the earliest stages of arranging your support through to preparing for reviews and audits, our ILAs are here to help guide you through the necessary steps to help ensure the support you arrange is both safe and aligned to your individual support plan.
Through our team of Independent Living Advisors, the NWL PHB support service is here to help you through your entire PHB journey.
Our Independent Living Advisors understand that each individual journey is different and the support they offer can be altered to reflect your personal circumstances.
In the early days of your PHB journey, our Independent Living Advisors will help you to understand what you need to do to get your support up and running. They can explain the steps required to ensure the support you arrange is in line with your PHB agreement and offer advice on how best to meet any statutory requirements.
When your PHB has been up and running for 6 to 8 weeks, our Independent Living Advisors will contact you to see how things are progressing and to ensure that everything is set-up and working in line with your support plan.
Every year, our Independent Living Advisors will contact you to support with a review of your arrangements to check that you are happy with your agreed level of support and that the arrangements you have in place are aligned to your support plan and PHB agreement.
More information on how the NWL PHB support service works can be found in the drop down boxes below:
The first step on your PHB journey is a clinical assessment of your health needs. This is usually completed by a multi-disciplinary team and will result in a support plan being developed that outlines both your identified health needs and a plan as to how you intend to meet your health goals.
The support plan will be accompanied by a budget calculator that identifies the amount of funding the NHS has calculated is required to support you in achieving your health goals.
Once your support plan and budget calculator have been approved by NHS NWL, your case manager will create a digital referral to the PHB Support Service.
As soon as a referral is received, our Independent Living Advisors (ILAs) will check to ensure we have all the information we require to properly support the setup of your Personal Health Budget on Virtual Wallet.
Our ILAs will then contact you by email or telephone to arrange a time for an initial discussion. During this conversation, the ILAs will look to understand a little more about you and your individual circumstance.
Following your initial discussion with our ILAs, we will understand more about how we can best support you with the next steps on your PHB journey.
As the PHB holder or authorised representative, you remain in control and are responsible for ensuring the support you arrange is inline with the PHB agreement you have with NHS NWL.
Our ILAs role is to offer advice, and support you through the process of setting-up your own care arrangements.
The ILAs can help you understand the elements that must be in place to ensure your support is safe and meets the requirements of the PHB agreement you have with NHS NWL.
Once you have identified the individuals or organisations that you wish to work with, the ILAs will liaise with the Virtual Wallet support team to get your support arrangements set-up in Virtual Wallet.
Getting these individuals or organisations registered on Virtual wallet will mean you are able to review and pay for the support you receive using your Virtual Wallet account.
Once your account is active, NHS North West London will send the agreed amount of funding to your Virtual Wallet account.
Please be aware that it can take up to 6 weeks for the first payment to reach your Virtual Wallet account, from the date that your referral is received by the NHS NWL PHB support service.
Following the first payment, funding will be credited to your Virtual Wallet account on or around the 1st of each month.
Once your support providers are set-up and funding is received, your Virtual Wallet account is live and ready to use.
The Virtual Wallet support team are on hand should you have any questions about how to access or use your Virtual Wallet account.
The Virtual Wallet support team are available Monday to Friday from 8:30am - 5:00pm via webchat, email or telephone, and their contact details are available in the 'useful contacts' section of this webpage.
Your case manager will have discussed with you the options available when looking to meet your identified health needs. This information will have been used to calculate the amount of funding you will receive from NHS NWL.
Where it has been identified that you require some form of personal support, the most popular ways of meeting this goal is by either instructing the services of a care agency, or employing your own Personal Assistant (PA).
Each type of support offers different benefits and the way in you which you choose to receive your support will determine how much input and management is required from you as the PHB holder.
More information on both agency support and employing personal assistants can be found in the sections below.
Receiving support from a care agency can often be the most straightforward way of meeting your care needs.
As the PHB holder or authorised representative, you are able to choose from any registered care agency in your area that can help to meet your identified health needs, within the budget allocated to you.
You may already know which care agency you wish to work with, but if you require support understanding which are agencies are available to you, please speak to your Independent Living Advisor.
More information on receiving care from an agency can be found in the drop-down boxes below:
If you choose to receive support from a care agency, it is the care agencies responsibility to find a suitably qualified individual to provide support to you. The care agency will be the employer and they will:
Whilst receiving support from an agency can often be a more simple way to meet your care needs, there are some other considerations to take into account. These include:
Arranging for a care agency to provide support to you is a straightforward process. However, it is important that you ask certain questions and obtain some assurances from the care agency to ensure the support they provide is safe, and in line with your expectations.
Follow steps 1 to 4 below to read more about the process:
You may have already discussed with your case manager which care agency you would like to work with. If you require any help understanding which care agencies are available locally, please contact your Independent Living Advisor.
Before you enter into any agreement, it is important that you speak to the care agency and understand:
It is also important that you confirm the rate charged by the agency is inline with the funding provided through your PHB agreement. Please speak to your Independent Living Advisor if you require any support with this.
Once you have selected the care agency you would like to work with, you will need to let your Independent Living Advisor know so they can start the process of registering the care agency on Virtual Wallet.
To do this, the Independent Living Advisor will need to know:
If you could provide this information to your Independent Living Advisor via email, that would be ideal - but they are happy to take this information over the phone if that is easier for you.
Once they have all the appropriate information, your Independent Living Advisor will arrange for the Virtual Wallet support team to contact the care agency, inviting them to register on Virtual Wallet.
This is a simple process for the care agency and once completed, will allow them to submit invoices for payment through your Virtual Wallet account. A number of care agencies across North West London are already registered on Virtual Wallet, so it may be that we are working with them already.
The Virtual Wallet support team will liaise with the care agency directly to get everything set-up in advance of the start date on your PHB
Once the care agency is registered, you will receive an email confirming your Virtual Wallet login details and instructions on how to manage your Virtual Wallet account.
The care agency should start providing care inline with the arrangements you have agreed with them and will generate invoices using Virtual Wallet that you can review at any time using your Vitual Wallet account.
If you need any help or support accessing your Virtual Wallet account, please contact the Virtual Wallet support team - their contact details can be found in the 'contacts' section at the bottom of this page.
Employing your own personal assistant affords maximum flexibility but does require more oversight and involvement than other types of support, as you legally become the employer of the individuals that provide support to you.
Whilst at first this can sound daunting, many individuals find that employing personal assistants provides ultimate control over how support is delivered and they benefit significantly from the freedom this brings.
As the PHB holder or authorised representative, you are in control of the recruitment and employment process, and are responsible for ensuring that the arrangements you make comply with both your PHB agreement and any relevant employment legislation.
Our Independent Living Advisors are on hand to guide you through this process and advise on the steps that you need to take to ensure the arrangements you make are safe and in line with your PHB agreement.
More information on receiving support from a personal assistant can be found in the drop-down boxes below:
If you choose to employ a personal assistant to provide support, you have the flexibility to recruit individuals that you feel can best help you to meet your care needs.
As you are the employer, you are able to:
Whilst receiving support from a personal assistant provides the most control and flexibility, it does mean you take responsibility as an employer and need to consider additional factors including:
There are a number of key steps to employing personal assistants - the below summary is designed to help ensure the arrangements you put in place are both safe and comply with all relevant employment legislation.
It may be that you already know, or have identified the individual you wish to employ as a personal assistant. In this instance, you still need complete a number of the stages below, to ensure the support you receive is safe and aligned to your PHB agreement with NHS NWL.
If you require assistance with any stage of the process, please contact your Independent Living Advisor who will be happy to assist.
You may also find it useful to look at this toolkit for Individual Employers that has been produced by Skills for Care
To find out more about the process of employing a personal assistant, please follow steps 1 to 6 below:
The first step on the journey to employing your own personal assistants is to find the individual that you would like to provide support to you. It may be that you have already identified the individuals you wish to work with, but if this is not the case, you will need to work through the recruitment process.
Important tasks include:
If you require any support with this process, our Independent Living Advisors can offer a range of support, including providing you with template documents that you may wish to use.
Once you have found the individual that you wish to employ as a personal assistant, there are a number of important tasks to complete before you can issue a formal contract of employment:
Once you have successfully completed all the pre-employment tasks highlighted in Step 2, you are ready to start preparing for your PAs first day at work. Important tasks to complete in advance of your PAs start date include:
Once you have identified the individual who you wish to employ as a personal assistant, you will need to let your Independent Living Advisor know so they can start the process of registering the personal assistant on Virtual Wallet.
To do this, the Independent Living Advisor will need to know:
You will also need to confirm which payroll provider you wish to work with.
If you choose to use Virtual Wallet Payroll, your Independent Living Advisor will be able to help start the payroll registration process with the Virtual Wallet payroll team.
If you choose to use a 3rd party payroll provider, you will need to contact the organisation directly and complete their own registration forms. Your Independent Living Advisor will need to know:
If you could provide this information to your Independent Living Advisor via email, that would be ideal - but they are happy to take this information over the phone if that is easier for you.
Once they have all the appropriate information, your Independent Living Advisor will arrange for the Virtual Wallet support team to contact your personal assistant, inviting them to register on Virtual Wallet.
This is a simple process for the personal assistant and once completed, they will be will be sent their own Virtual Wallet log-in details., allowing them to submit timesheets for you to review using your own Virtual Wallet account.
The Virtual Wallet support team will liaise with the personal assistant directly to get everything set-up in advance of the start date on your PHB.
If you have chosen to work with a 3rd party payroll provider, the Virtual Wallet support team will contact them to invite them to register on Virtual Wallet and agree a way of working together to ensure payroll runs smoothly for both you and your employees.
Once your personal assistant is registered on Virtual Wallet, you will receive an email confirming your Virtual Wallet login details and instructions on how to manage your Virtual Wallet account.
The personal assistant should start providing care inline with the arrangements you have agreed with them and submit timesheets on a regular basis using Virtual Wallet.
You should review and approve these timesheets within 3 days of them being submitted using your Vitual Wallet account.
If you need any help or support accessing your Virtual Wallet account, please contact the Virtual Wallet support team - their contact details can be found in the 'contacts' section at the bottom of this page.
Once your PHB has been agreed by NHS NWL, your case manager will complete a referral form that passes all the relevant information to the NWL PHB Support Service.
When we receive the referral form from NHS NWL, one of our Independent Living Advisors will make contact with you, or your nominated representative to introduce themselves and confirm the basic information we have received.
Our ILA will then work with you to understand how you wish to achieve your identified health goals and support you to get your PHB up and running as soon as possible.
More information on the support our Independent Living Advisors are able to offer is available on this page.
Our Independent Living Advisors will attempt to make initial contact with you within 1 working day of your referral being received.
When a new referral is received, our Independent Living Advisors will review the information that has been provided by the case manager to ensure we have everything we need to progress the referral - if there are any queries, there may be a slight delay whilst we work with your case manager to resolve these.
Our Independent Living Advisors should be your first stop for any queries relating to your Personal Health Budget.
If your query relates to something the Independent Living Advisors cannot answer directly, they are happy to liaise with case managers at NHS NWL on your behalf, or signpost you to other support organisations if appropriate.
At the point your PHB referral is sent to the PHB Support Service, your case manager is also responsible for ensuring that NHS NWL start the process of making your funding available to you in Virtual Wallet.
It can take up to 6 weeks from the point your referral is received by the NWL Support Service for your first payment to be available in your Virtual Wallet account.
After the first payment, funds will be deposited into your Virtual Wallet account on or before the 1st of each month.
You are able to use your PHB funding for anything that is detailed in your support plan.
If you decide that you wish to use your PHB funding for something that is not detailed in your support plan, please speak with your Independent Living Advisor.
Whilst your Independent Living Advisor is unable to amend your support plan, they are happy to liaise with your case manager who will be able to review your request and submit a revised support plan for approval by NHS NWL.
The first step would be to speak to your Independent living Advisor.
They will be able to help you to understand if the changes you are looking to make are in line with your current support plan and if funding is available within the budget that has been agreed to support these changes.
If any changes to the support plan or funding amount is required, your Independent Living Advisor will liaise with your case manager at NHS NWL to understand the options that are available to you.
This could result in a new support plan and budget being provided for you.
Whilst using a self-employed personal assistant to meet your support needs does mean that some management activity like payroll is dealt with by the personal assistant themselves, there are still a number of checks and assurances that you need to have in-place:
The NWL PHB Support Service is working to complete annual reviews of all PHB accounts.
This is to help ensure that the PHB continues to meet your identified health needs and to help you prepare for the annual financial audit of your account.
The Independent Living Advisors are able to work with you check you have all the necessary safeguards in place to make ensure that the support you receive is safe and meets the requirements of your PHB agreement.
Step through our tutorial to understand more about how Virtual Wallet can help you manage your personal health budget.
Visit our resources page to view our ‘how to guides’ and find more information about personal health budgets from a variety of sources.
Follow the below link to visit NHS North West London's own website and learn more about their personal health budget process.
Independent Living Advisors
Hours of service: Monday to Friday 09:00 to 17:00
Email: ilateam@publicpartnerships.co.uk - Phone: 03300 582 693
Virtual Wallet Support Team
Hours of service: Monday to Friday 09:00 to 17:00
Email: info@myvirtualwallet.co.uk Phone: 03300 582 690
Webchat: www.myvirtualwallet.co.uk