Personalised care means that people have choice and control over the way that their care is planned and delivered. The concept is intended to ensure that people receive care that’s based on their preferences.
This doesn’t just involve a change in approach for staff who are directly supporting someone. It has implications for the leadership of organisations and how we commission social care, alongside people working in business support functions and our partner organisations.
Skills for Care is involved in a variety of initiatives that encourage the shift towards more choice and control for people drawing on care and support and I wanted to shine a light on what they are and how you can get involved.
The recently launched ‘Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care’,which Skills for Care helped develop in collaboration with the sector, complements and reinforces the NHS Long Term Plan and is intended to support the shared goals of our health and social care infrastructure, meaning it will have a big impact on how we shape choice and control in social care. Importantly, personalisation is noted in the Strategy as one of the primary drivers of our sector’s need for change – ‘Changing needs mean we will increasingly need an integrated workforce focusing on personalisation, prevention and wellbeing’.
The Strategy makes some important recommendations when it comes to personalisation, most notable in its support for individual employers. Self-directed care through employment of personal assistants is often recognised as the ultimate in personalisation as it gives the person being supported total control over who they employ and in what capacity. Use of direct payments and personal health budgets recognises the expertise that people have about their own care and support needs. That’s why I think it’s great to see the Strategy state that the Local Government Association (LGA) should develop a set of recommendations around supporting individual employers to manage their employment responsibilities, including access to resources such as legal advice, payroll services and human resources in line with the Care Act. If adopted, this will make the lives of individual employers far easier and make personalised care far more accessible.
In addition to strategic initiatives, we’ve also been involved in the development of a qualification to support those who are actively commissioning care and support services, which has a strong focus on personalised care. The ‘Principles of Commissioning for Wellbeing Level 5 has been available for several years and was recently independently evaluated as having a positive impact on commissioning. . It focuses heavily on the importance of co-production throughout the commissioning cycle, recognising the expertise of those drawing on care and support to create innovative and personalised care solutions.
One social care commissioner and course participant said:
“From what I’ve learnt about co-production and partnership (…) the principles and practices for commissioning for wellbeing, and just putting those in place really. This is the way you’ve got to do it, and because I’m starting from scratch, I’m trying to take responsibility for that. I never do anything without co-production now.”
To this end, we also offer a national peer network for commissioners. This is a dedicated network for commissioners is based around feedback from commissioners. Activity includes masterclasses on topics relevant to commissioners, alongside peer networking and problem-solving events where we address issues such as personalisation.
Outside of course development and local networks, we also offer a great deal of free informational resources for commissioners on our website. The information on this page is for commissioners working at all levels of adult social care and may also be of interest to children and young people and health commissioners.
@skillsforcare
