Personal care budgets need further testing before being implemented and an extensive professional engagement as soon as possible, the NHS Confederation has said.
The body found that mental health service users are skeptical and confused about the potential of personal budgets to improve their care while only a minority of potential users said they would take up the budgets.
Although it supported the introduction and increased availability of personal budgets, the NHS Confederation's Mental Health Network believes there are important barriers that will need to be addressed before they can be implemented successfully.
The budgets allow people with ongoing mental health, physical health and social care needs to make their own arrangements directly with suppliers.
Based on the evidence presented in three reports, the Mental Health Network called for the government to extend the pilot schemes and begin an extensive programme of professional engagement as soon as possible.
The third report into personal budgets, published today, is based on focus group and survey evidence, with many service users saying they recognised personal budgets could provide a solution to the frustrations they have in getting more control over their care.
But, it added, they are not convinced that on their own, personal budgets will change what they see as ‘deeply engrained clinical, organisational and managerial cultures'.
It noted that many service users are confused about what a personal budget is and they are unclear how they will integrate with similar social care budgets.
And, as things stand, only a minority of service users would take up them up.
The first of the three reports surveyed leaders in health and social care who highlighted the issues of complexity, cost, culture change and quality assurance in providing personal budgets.
In the second, many clinicians suggested they already offered sufficient choice in support and expressed concerns about the evidence base for many of the services and treatments that people might choose though a personal budgets.
Steve Shrub, director of the NHS Confederation's Mental Health Network, said: "There is clearly skepticism among service users about personal budgets being just one more policy solution that promises so much and delivers so little.
"All of this in spite of the fact that personal budgets offer solutions to many of the frustrations people express about the care and support they receive. We think personal budgets can be a really powerful tool to improve services.
"But they will only work if both clinicians and service users - not simply policy makers - are convinced they will.
"We must therefore be realistic about how quickly we implement personal budgets because it will involve some really significant challenges. Otherwise there is a risk we will ruin good policy with poor implementation," he added.
