What is care planning
The Department of Health defines care planning as:
"a process which offers people active involvement in deciding, agreeing and owning how their condition will be managed. It is underpinned by the principles of patient-centeredness and partnership working… It is an on-going process of two-way communication, negotiation and joint decision-making in which both the person …. and the health care professionals make an equal contribution to the consultation.”
The Year of Care Programme took the elements of care planning that had been widely consulted on within the diabetes community, and working with three very different pilot sites identified the practical steps that were needed to put these into place in everyday care, building on a strong international evidence base1. In diabetes this meant changing the annual review which is sometimes a ‘tick box’ process to fulfil QOF requirements, to a collaborative care planning consultation.
The underpinning philosophy of care planning in the Year of Care (YOC) approach states:
· people with LTCs are in charge of their own lives and self-management of their condition/s, and are the primary decision makers about the actions they take in relation to their diabetes management
· people are much more likely to undertake action in relation to the decision they make themselves than decisions that are made for them
This means the health care professional has a new role. Instead of doing things ‘to’ and ‘for’ patients, care planning is about do things ‘with’ people, enabling them to identify their own information needs, goals and action plans and supporting them to be good problem solvers as they live day by day with their LTCs. This often requires health care professionals to learn new skills as well as new ways of working.
1. The evidence base for the components to deliver care planning is found in Graffy J, Eaton S, Sturt J & Chadick P. (2009). Personalised Care Planning for Diabetes: Policy Lessons from Systematic Reviews of Consultation and Self-Management Interventions. Primary Health Care Research & Development, 10, 210-222.
