Think Local Act Personal – or TLAP, for short – was formed in 2011 by the UK government to bring organisations and people together  to make health and social care more personalised.

Right from the start, we understood no organisation could work in isolation to make personalisation happen. We’ve always understood the importance of bringing together people who draw on care and support, unpaid carers, and organisations to make positive change happen.

It was a natural step for us to pioneer coproduction as our core way of working. TLAP established the National Co-production Advisory Group (NCAG) to ensure that people who draw upon care and support and carers would always be at the heart of everything we do.

Since these beginnings, a lot has happened.

In 2012 we launched the first version of Making It Real, our co-produced statements that describe what good personalised care and support looks like. In the following year, our new Care and Support Jargon Buster won a Plain English Award.

In 2014 personalisation became law with the Care Act. TLAP and NCAG helped keep the focus on wellbeing, choice and control. The Department of Health asked us to produce guidance to support local authorities and others in preparing for its implementation from April 2015.

2016 saw us launch our popular ‘Ladder of Co-production’. We also worked with In Control to publish the reports from the POET surveys, which helped build understanding of people’s experiences of Personal Budgets.

In 2018, we published the refreshed Making It Real, expanding the I Statements and co-producing We Statements for the first time. We also worked to find and promote positive approaches to community-based support, which we showcased in our Innovation Rainbow. We continued to work extensively with local authorities to promote Making It Real and co-production, and developed lots of resources on topics that could help make personalisation happen.

In recent years, we’ve continued to shape practice and influence government policy. TLAP was instrumental to putting lived experience at the heart of the Department of Health and Social Care’s ‘People at the heart of care’ White Paper. And in 2023, the Care Quality Commission built statements from Making It Real into their new single assessment framework. This marked the start of a new major partnership to embed our principles for good personalised care and support into regulation.

The work goes on. 

TLAP is now taking a lead on coproducing principles and ethics with people who draw on care and support. We’ve published workforce values statements (incorporated within DHSC’s care workforce pathway), co-produced Social Care Data principles and are partnering with Oxford University to co-produce values statements for the ethical use of AI in social care.

In 2024, we convened the Time to Act Reform Board, bringing together people and organisations from across health and social care to focus on reform. This work will be shaped by Social Care Future vision, Making It Real framework and the ADASS Time to Act Roadmap.