Putting People First – Just In Case This Hasn’t Properly Hit Your Radar…
by Glen Crosier on August 6, 2009
in Personalisation Agenda
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If the impact of Putting People First isn’t already part of your working life, here’s a quick snapshot to bring you right up to date as of August 2009.
Putting People First is the lead paper outlining the Government’s vision of how social care will be transformed.
Download a copy of the putting people first paper.
Targets for 2011 have been set for local Councils to make significant progress facilitating social care markets. The vision is for private and third sector organisations to provide a wide range of personalised services to improve the lives of people who need care and support from low level to complex needs.
As this blog was specifically set up to help with marketing and business development in the care and support sector, I’m always aiming to link these tips, thoughts and recommendations to the emerging trends in the ‘new’ social care markets… And that means keeping up to date with the progress local authorities are making to transform social care in local communities…
Transforming the Culture of Social Care
The idea of personal choice and individual rights may not seem to be anything new at first glance but the Putting People First paper presents a strong call for change…
According to Putting People First, a shift in culture is needed to recognise and respond to the changing demands of a society with a rapidly aging population. Its no longer useful to think of the social care system as fundamentally a safety net for the most vulnerable. Care needed to merely survive is a basic human right which should be available without having to jump through beauracratic hoops.
Services should be developed that go beyond meeting the most basic needs. Opportunities and a range of products/services for individuals, carers and their families to develop their own lives through disability and old age should be available locally.
The personalisation agenda supports this shift in culture by seeing everyone as a unique individual with their own preferences, personality, lifestyle choices rather than grouped together and defined by the system as belonging to a “vulnerable client group” with primary and secondary needs.
The whole concept of ‘personalisation’ is enabled by local Council provision of individual budgets and self directed support planning, along with a range of brokerage type services ready to help translate, advise, recommend, coordinate things for those who can’t or don’t want to arrange their own care, support and related services themselves.
The key idea here is that vulnerable people supported financially fully or partially by the state will have control over who provides their services. Traditionally this ‘choice’ has only been available to individuals/families with funds to pay for their own care and support.
It’s Happening Now In Your Area…
There’s growing evidence that Councils are being proactive with this and things have changed quite a bit already since Putting People First was published Dec 07…
A recent survey I found on the Dept of Health Care Networks website shows progress has been made in 148/150 local Councils in England and a few other good indicators…
- On the 31st March 2009, almost 93,000 people were receiving Personal Budgets equating to over £681m of council expenditure.
- By the end of March next year it is expected this will rise to around 206,000 people.
- Based on current trends, this would commit nearly £1.5bn of Council funding, and suggests that at least one person in every five receiving council funded support to live in their own home will have a personal budget.
- Nearly all authorities report active engagement with provider organisations in the development of a wider range of care and support services and increased local and regional work on market development is planned.
- 4 out of 5 authorities feel that the range and flexibility of provision has already improved, and over three quarters believe that the development of preventative services in their area has significantly impacted on outcomes.
- All councils report development of better local information and advice services that will be more widely available to everyone in their community.
This makes it clear that if you’re not talking to your local commissioners you should be… because your competitors definitely are. If you need to make new contacts in your local authority now is a perfect opportunity. Find out what’s planned locally and look for opportunities that fit the unique skills your organisation brings to the party…
Your local Council should definitely be your first port of call in finding out how personalisation will affect your organisation see How to Think About ‘Personalisation’ and New Business…
