10 - Personalised care

Summary

Aim

Personalised care approaches aim to ensure that care is tailored to the person and that they have choice and control where it is appropriate. Incorporating these approaches throughout the design of services for health and care will improve outcomes and experiences for people. This chapter describes the six components of the comprehensive model for personalised care, how to apply them, and how they can help improve outcomes for people.

What is personalised care?

Personalised care aims to provide people with the power, and the right conditions, to make choice and control achievable and meaningful. It means people are actively involved in the way their care is planned and delivered, based on ‘what matters’ to them and their individual strengths, cultural needs, and preferences. This happens within a system that supports people to stay well for longer and makes the most of the expertise, capacity, and potential of people, families, and communities in delivering better health, access, wellbeing, outcomes and experiences.

Personalised care is a business- as- usual requirement in the NHS Long Term Plan (NHS England, 2019c) and therefore is an important consideration for providers and commissioners as they deliver, design, and contract services for the future. NHS England policy suggests that personalised care is central to a new service model for the NHS, including within integrated care systems. The aim is that people have a more diverse range of options, better support, and properly joined- up care at the right time and in the optimal care setting. This approach and the six components make up the comprehensive model of personalised care (NHS England, 2019d). The components are:

• 1. Shared decision making.

• 2. Personalised care and support planning.

• 3. Enabling choice, including legal rights to choice.

• 4. Social prescribing and community- based support.

• 5. Supported self- management.

• 6. Personal health budgets and integrated personal budgets.

The comprehensive model guidance (NHS England, 2019d) suggests that the six components need to be delivered together and in full for the maximum benefit. Although I would agree with this approach, it is sometimes more realistic to incorporate the elements in stages, building confidence in the processes until a full model is reached for the particular care condition to be improved.