Personalised care and support

Personalised care and support will be a new way to involve you in planning your care to make sure it is right for your needs.

It means that you will have an individual care plan, which is created together between you and your healthcare team. This care plan will have information about what you need, your care, your goals, and what matters to you. This is known as ‘personalised care and support’.

Some people who use our services may already have an individual care plan through what you might know as ‘care programme approach’. This is used by some of our services to plan mental health care and support.

Everyone over the age of 18 who is under the care of our adults and older adults community mental health services will move to having a personalised care and support plan. This includes people under the care of these services who already use the care programme approach. This will happen towards the end of 2024.

Adults who use the following services will carry on using the ‘care programme approach’ which means there will be no change:

Forensics
Mental health services for D/deaf patients for adults
Eating disorder services
Perinatal mental health services
Obsessive compulsive disorder and body dysmorphic disorder

There will be no change to our child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).

Why are you bringing in personalised care and support?

Personalised care and support planning is a national plan from NHS England which will make sure that everyone using community mental health services gets the same high quality, flexible, and personalised care. You can read more about the NHS England initiative on their website.

What does personalised care and support mean for me?

There are some things that you will notice will be different:

You may be asked questions by your healthcare team such as – ‘what has happened to you?’ and ‘what support do you need?’
You will have an individual care and support plan which is done together with your health and care team. This will give you all the important information you need about your care and support in one place.
You will be asked to let your health and care team know how you are getting on, using ‘patient reported outcome measures’.
You will be given a named keyworker. This will be somebody who is already part of the health and care team who already support you, such as your care coordinator. They will work with you and your wider health and care team to make sure your care and support plan is working well.
Your health and care team will be made up from a range of health and care professionals with the specialist skills to support you in your care plan (known as a ‘multi-disciplinary team’).
Your care and support plan will make it easier for others who support you, such as family members or carers, to know what to do to help you, if you want them to.

A personalised care and support plan will be created with you every time you start under the care of one of our adults and older adults community mental health services.