Personalisation: Five years on

Sam Bennett and Andrea Sutcliffe joint blog for the MJ focusing on reflections from the recent ministerial Personalisation Summitt.

" How are we doing with personalisation and what do we need to do next?

That was the question posed at a recent personalisation summit hosted by care minister Norman Lamb.

It has been five years since personalisation became part of mainstream policy and the event was time to take stock, and to provide renewed energy and direction to the agenda.

There has been some considerable progress, particularly in the numbers of people in most areas who now have access to personal budgets, though there was consensus, at the summit, that there remains a long way to go to make personalisation real for everyone.

The summit looked at issues such as ensuring that personal budgets work well in every area and for people with different needs, how to reduce bureaucracy in the self-directed support process, and how to use personal budgets to integrate care and support that is right for the person who needs that care.

The summit also looked at how local markets of personalised care and support are developing, and at the barriers and enablers to commissioning and delivering personalised care and support services in different settings.

It was also good to hear Norman Lamb saying he was not interested in hitting targets if they do not mean real change for people in their experience of care and support.

We have to make sure we focus on real change not the appearance of change.

As well as reviewing evidence of progress and hearing the perspectives of Sue Bott and Sally Percival from the National Co-Production Advisory Group, the summit concentrated on identifying the remaining challenges to implementation and on identifying possible solutions to stumbling blocks.

So the summit was an opportunity for national and local government and key social care sector partners, including people who use services and carers, to reflect on the story so far and to dig for answers that ensure we keep making progress at a time of continued pressure on public finances.

It was also about grasping new opportunities.

Following the summit, Think Local Act Personal will be coordinating the work to produce an action plan, endorsed by the Department of Health, which will reconfirm the sector's commitment to personalisation and to focus attention on cracking the key issues that remain."