Person-centred care: fantasy, fad, or far-reaching in its potential?

Jacquie White is Deputy Director for Long Term Conditions, Older People and End of Life at NHS England, and tweets at @jaqwhite1. In this blog, she discusses person-centred care and NHS England’s new “Our Declaration” campaign.

Person-centred care seems to be the latest thing the NHS has suddenly started to get excited about, but is it of value, will it last, or is it just another fad?

Collaboration and training: life as an ACF in Geriatric Medicine

Jenni Harrison is a Clinical Research Fellow and Junior Doctor, who has just started a PhD at the University of Edinburgh following completion of Academic Core Medical Training. She tweets @JenniKHarrison

I still remember opening the email from Dr Conroy, which simply said:

“Would you like to write an article about frailty with Professor Young and I?”

As you’d expect like many things during my time as an Academic Clinical Fellow (ACF) in Geriatric Medicine it was met with an enthusiastically prompt reply. Only a few weeks earlier I’d had the opportunity to participate in a Frailty Workshop in Leeds run by Dr Andy Clegg and Professor Young, discussing their Frailty Index using routinely-collected GP practice data. Professor Young had challenged us on that occasion to think about frailty not simply as a descriptive term, but as a long-term condition.

Towards a new deal for people with long term health conditions

Martin Routledge is the director of the Coalition for Collaborative Care, and tweets at @mroutled

The Coalition for Collaborative Care launched towards the end of last year. It was set up to “light the blue touch paper for big changes in how people with long term heath conditions and professionals work together to produce better lives”. From an initial partnership of 15 organisations, C4CC has rapidly expanded to almost 50, including the BGS. These represent professional and system leadership in health and care, key evidence and innovation bodies, major charities for people with long-term conditions and organisations at the cutting edge of person-centred, community focused care and support. Crucially C4CC is embedding “co-production” – through people with long-term conditions and family carers being central to what it does. We are very pleased that the BGS has joined us.