Introduction to personalisation in social care

Handout 2: Defining personalisation

Learning outcome 1, assessment criteria 1.1

Personalisation is a new way of thinking about and ‘doing’ social care. The personalisation of public services, including social care, was first suggested in a 2004 Demos report, Personalisation Through Participation: A New Script for Public Services (Leadbeater 2004). Leadbeater’s report described a society that placed individuals at the centre of services which they also helped to design and deliver. The report identified five meanings of personalisation:

  1. Providing individuals with customer-friendly versions of existing services.
  2. Giving individuals who use services more say in how these services are run, once they have access to them.
  3. Giving individuals who use services a more direct say in how money is spent on services.
  4. Enabling individuals who use services to become co-designers and co-producers of services.
  5. Enabling self-organisation by society.

In essence, personalisation involves recognising individuals as individuals who have strengths and preferences and putting them at the centre of their own care and support. This is an idea and approach that turns the traditional service-led, directive approach of care delivery on its head. Personalised approaches, such as self-directed support and personal budgets, involve enabling individuals to identify their own needs and make choices about how and when they are supported to live their lives. The consequences for health and social care workers, and the organisations and agencies that employ them, are considerable. For example, personalising services will mean:

  • support must be tailored to individuals’ own needs whatever the care and support setting
  • ensuring individuals have access to information, advocacy and advice to enable them to make informed decisions about their care and support, or personal budget management
  • finding new ways for social care workers and individuals to work together (sometimes known as ‘co-production’) so that individuals can actively engage in the design, delivery and evaluation of their own services.

Personalisation will drastically change the philosophy, practice and organisational landscape of health and social care. Practitioners and organisations will need to think about social care in an entirely different way – starting with the individual rather than the service. To personalise social care, individuals, rather than systems and procedures, must come first.

Reference

Leadbeater, C. (2004) Personalisation Through Participation: A New Script for Public Services. London: Demos.