Reflections from our first Rethinking Our Health codesign workshops.

Codesign events with communities and partners 

July saw an important milestone in Rethinking Our Health, with our test site partners we held community codesign events to share back the findings of the engagement phase, and to discuss practical ideas to take forward in the autumn. These will be focused on our goal of community-designed, clinically backed support for people with or at risk of osteo-arthritis, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

A mix of lived and professional experience

At both events we had a half and half mixture of community members and people who work in health, local government, and the voluntary community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector.   

Designing the events with the community 

Both events were planned with our test site partners and community members, and this is key to how they went. This meant focusing on the biggest things people told us about in the engagement phase – there were pain, access to services, understanding and confidence around your condition, practical social and financial barriers.   

Two areas, two approaches 

In one test site there has been a history of (and a funded infrastructure for) conversations and partnership working. Over the last ten years, many issues have been discussed, the progress both desired and created by all, the codesign event felt natural. It felt like we could ask things of each other.   

In our other area leadership is more dispersed, local government takes a bigger role in leading and encouraging community health and engagement partnership working. Test site partners took a participatory appraisal approach to developing community engagement in our big question, and the pre-event work was important to building interest and confidence to take part.   

Shared energy and commitment 

One thing in common was that both events were buzzing with enthusiasm and commitment to neighbourhoods was clear. There is a real appetite for building on existing or previous work, ambition for better solutions and understanding that so much of this is built on relationships.   

What we heard: Key themes from the codesigns 

Key themes that came out of both events were  

• desire for local, early, holistic support  
• positive and ambitious views on the role of community and VCSE in this  
• community engagement and mobilisation, patient leadership and voice is critical  
• importance of being heard, and *feeling* heard – both in individual situations as well as a community  

We heard a range of views about what kind of support could be given by clinicians versus non-clinicians, and creating different configurations of how community and clinician support could be offered together. 

Clinical risk and collaboration 

There’s an important discussion to be had about understanding and managing any clinical risk, which Here as a clinical and community-rooted organisation is well-placed to host.   

Looking ahead 

For now, sign up to receive an update when we publish the next blog. Want to get in touch about Rethinking Our Health? Email us: Collab@HereWeAre.org

We’re delighted to share that Community Appointments Days (CADs), developed by Here as part of Sussex MSK Partnership has been shortlisted for a 2025 HSJ Award in the Primary and Community Care Innovation of the Year category. 

This shortlisting is a celebration of the collaborative effort that brought CADs to life – including our brilliant partners at Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust, local VCSE organisations, and the dedicated clinicians, care navigators and volunteers who are reimagining care with us. 

Community Appointment Days (CADs)

Our entry showcases the innovative CAD model of care co-designed with patients, clinicians and voluntary sector partners. CADs are transforming how people experience MSK (musculoskeletal) support by bringing together whole teams of professionals in local community spaces, and delivering same-day, person-centred care shaped around individual priorities. 

“What could have taken a few months was made possible in 1.5 hours.”
— Patient feedback from a CAD 

The CAD vision

Born from a vision to take care out of hospitals and into the heart of communities, CADs enable people to get the support they need in one visit – from clinical advice and self-management plans to wellbeing coaching and social prescribing. With over half of attendees discharged to self-care on the day, and outstanding feedback from both patients and staff, CADs are delivering real impact – and a powerful example of what becomes possible when we start with trust, partnership, and the question “What matters to you?” 

Our shortlisted entry for Community Appointment Days, was selected following a rigorous judging process and has been recognised as a standout example of excellence in healthcare delivery. 

HSJ Editor Alastair McLellan commented: “On behalf of all my colleagues, it gives me great pleasure to congratulate Here on being shortlisted as a finalist in the category of Primary and Community Care Innovation of the Year. All of the applications represent the ‘very best of the NHS’ and often leave our esteemed panel of judges with an impossible choice! Year on year the number of entrants continue to rise which I find so encouraging and is testament to the effect that HSJ Awards can have on improved staff culture and morale.” 

We’re proud to stand alongside others who are pushing boundaries and demonstrating that integrated, person-centred care is not just possible, but essential for the future of healthcare. 

Thank you to everyone involved and congratulations to all the other inspiring projects and teams shortlisted this year! 

Introducing Rethinking Our Health – a new way of working with communities to support people living with long-term conditions. 

Rethinking Our Health is a new collaboration between Here and The King’s Fund, bringing together communities and organisations across Sussex to explore new ways of supporting people living with multiple long-term conditions. 

Together with partners in the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, primary care, and local government, we’ll be focusing on two neighbourhood test sites: 

• Wick in Littlehampton, supported by the Arun Integrated Community Team (ICT), and 

• Hangleton & Knoll in Brighton & Hove, supported by the West Brighton & Hove ICT. 

Why is this needed? 

Long-term conditions (LTCs) are among the most pressing issues in health and social care in the UK. These chronic illnesses require sustained, ongoing management, and an increasing number of people are living with more than one condition. 

This rise in multiple long-term conditions is having a serious and growing impact on individuals, families, communities, the economy, and our health and care services. 

However, formal healthcare only accounts for around 20 per cent of a person’s health outcomes. The remaining 80 per cent are influenced by social factors, health behaviours and the physical environment. This means we need to look beyond traditional ways of working and rethink how people, communities, and professionals across health and other sectors come together to design solutions.

Who we’re working with 

Wick test site partners 
Voluntary Action Arun & Chichester, Arun District Council, West Sussex County Council, Arun ICT 

West Brighton & Hove test site partners 
The Hangleton & Knoll Project, Portslade Health Centre 

What we’re aiming to do 

People with more than one long-term condition often face a tangled web of barriers to managing their health, not only clinical symptoms, but also housing pressures, transport issues, isolation, work stress, or caring responsibilities. 

Rethinking Our Health is about working with communities to design and test new ways of offering support that will: 

• be rooted in the community and built around people’s real lives 

• be clinically backed and co-designed with local professionals 

• recognise and respond to the social and environmental barriers people face 

• help prevent the development of additional conditions 

Initially, we will focus on supporting people living with osteoarthritis, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, which are often experienced together. We expect pain and mental health to be important factors in this work, although persistent pain will not be included in the project. 

What we know 

We know that people face a wide range of barriers when it comes to managing their health. These include: 

• social factors such as housing, work, transport and caring responsibilities 

• the combined impact of multiple conditions 

• fragmented services which treat conditions in isolation 

• isolation or a lack of local support 

• limited knowledge, confidence or skills to manage their health 

How we’ll work 

The project will unfold over four phases: 

• Community engagement (May–June 2025): Listening to local voices and experiences 

• Co-design sessions (July 2025): Shaping the new approach together 

• Delivery of the new Rethinking Our Health offer (autumn 2025 onwards) 

• Evaluation of the impact and process (autumn 2025 onwards) 

Our principles 

Everything we do will be underpinned by a shared set of values and principles: 

• Asset-based and community-led: starting with strengths, not just needs 

• Clinically backed, co-delivered: health professionals and communities working together 

• Personalised care: support tailored to each person’s life and goals 

• Equal weight to social and clinical factors 

• Addressing health inequalities head-on 

• Trauma-informed ways of working 

• Generous leadership and open sharing of what we learn 

Stay connected 

 If you would like to know more or get involved, please contact jo.crease@nhs.net.

We will be sharing our learning and progress as the project develops on our blog.

At Here, we believe that designing exceptional care means working in true partnership with the people who use our services. In this blog, Health Builder Norman Webster shares how our unique approach puts lived experience at the heart of service design and delivery. 

Designing and delivering exceptional care surely has to include those for whom the care is being designed and delivered? “Do with” rather than “Do to” has to be the way forward to improve outcomes and shift responsibility from clinicians to a shared responsibility with patients. 

Patients and carers are involved as Health Builders in this design and delivery journey at Here.

What is a Health Builder? 

What is a Health Builder, I hear you ask.  

We are a small team of people with various long-term health conditions who work across services at Here, including Sussex MSK Health: Brighton & Hove and West Sussex. We are involved in patient empowerment initiatives like Shared Decision Making and Personalised Care. Our work spans advising on policy documents and public-facing communications, observing clinics to provide feedback for clinicians’ Continuing Professional Development, and helping improve pathways in areas such as stroke aftercare. One of our team members has even provided the voice-over for our informative patient videos.

Holding space in service design 

We are confident in holding our space at the table when important, exceptional care service design conversations happen. We know one another and can speak up for each other in these spaces. We hold regular “Big Conversations” in community settings to gather the views and feelings of our communities. We explore current themes in health care delivery in local communities.  We explore how people currently access our services and what could make the experience smoother and more accessible for everyone. We do this so that we can represent them in the policy and governance decisions as they are made. 

Building accountability into new governance structures 

There is a formal route of reporting our work through the Clinical Quality Oversight Group. This is a new group set up following the creation of the Sussex MSK Health: Brighton & Hove and West Sussex in December 2024. It is vital that, during this period of change within our service, we put patient experience at the heart of building this new MSK service with colleagues from across Brighton & Hove and West Sussex. 

More than a tick-box: meaningful involvement 

The Health Builder team is unique in that we are paid according to NHS guidelines for honoraria and we are involved in areas of work as true partners in creating exceptional care.  We are also unafraid to point out inadequacies in service creation and delivery. We are not simply a group of people with lived experience, wheeled out when “consultation” is required, as part of a tick box exercise. 

Valuing local and cultural connections 

We value community connections and are active members of groups such as Crawley Community Action, Community People, West Area Health Forum and Voluntary Action Adur and Chichester.  

The delivery of services to marginalised groups is important to us. We have facilitated health events with the Gurjar Hindu Indian community, Crawley Islamic Centre and Masjid, West Hove Health Forum and others. Apart from providing on-site health care, we are keen to hear the views of local communities. We provide feedback information via the Clinical Quality Oversight Group. 

Listening, acting and learning through feedback 

Our priority is providing community health and networking events to build long-term and meaningful relationships where those communities feel safe in expressing their health interactions with NHS services. Sometimes these conversations can be difficult, but we value and act upon all feedback through our community engagement efforts. 

One example of this in action is our work to improve stroke pathways. Health Builders collaborated with clinicians and service leads to gather and reflect the real experiences of people who had accessed stroke aftercare services. Through community conversations and targeted engagement, we identified areas where patients and carers felt unsupported, particularly in transitions between acute care and community rehabilitation. Our insights helped to shape clearer signposting, better continuity of care, and more personalised support for stroke survivors and their families.  

Our ultimate aim is to seek out marginalised groups and ensure members of those groups begin to feel that care is accessible and safe for them. 

Why Health Builders matter more than ever 

The NHS has been under immense financial pressure for years. Rising staffing, medicines, energy and fuel costs, a growing maintenance and estates backlog and the post-pandemic situation have tightened the NHS’s purse strings. The people in charge are forced to make tough decisions to balance the books. It is ever more important that patients derive maximum benefit from each interaction with the NHS and that they are treated in the most cost-effective ways possible. 

Making every contact count 

Health Builders provide wrap-around care to people who access our service by welcoming them at CAD and Hub events, supporting them at Peer Support Groups and ensuring that all services and communications are delivered in the most appropriate ways. 

By knowing our communities and understanding their needs through our “Big Conversations” and other activities, we can identify marginalised groups. We make every effort to engage with them to understand their specific needs. We try to make care feel accessible and safe for them. 

The bottom line is that we need to make every contact count in the current health economy. 

By Norman Webster – Health Builder.  

Care Navigation/Social Prescribing is a model that enables health and social care professionals to refer people to a range of non-medical services within their community to improve and support social, mental and physical health and wellbeing.

Recognising that people’s health and wellbeing is affected by a range of social, economic, and environmental factors.

Care Navigation takes a holistic approach that enables people to take control of their own health. With the practical and emotional support of a Care Navigator this allows people to identify ways to improve how they are feeling.

How does it work?

Our Care Navigators spend time helping people to focus on ‘what matters’ to them. They assess the needs of each individual and together create a personalised care and support plan. This may involve connecting them to community groups, classes, workshops, or even advisory bodies for legal advice or debt counselling.

Care Navigating success

There is increasing evidence in the success of Care Navigating/Social Prescribing and the impact it has on both individuals and communities.

“In one evaluation, six care navigators from voluntary care organisations worked in integrated health and social care teams across and county. They carried out up to six face to face interviews with an older person, with a unit cost of £42 (compared to £213 per visit for adult social worker). Health related quality of life measures improved by 17%, people needed to use fewer health services and the project was overall cost effective.” ~ Care Navigation: A Competency Framework

“Thank you so much, you’ve helped me to realise there are resources out there for me” – Patient was experiencing homelessness

Is there a difference between Care Navigators and Social Prescribers?

There is no universal definition of care navigation a variety of titles are used, including ‘care navigator (CN)’, ‘social prescriber (SP)’ and ‘link worker’. All these roles provide effective navigation and is a key element of delivering coordinated, person-centred care and support.

Care Navigators are often existing members of staff within Community Services and GP practices. At Sussex MSK Health, our Care Navigators work closely with clinicians, which helps to free up valuable clinical time for addressing physical health needs, while Care Navigators can focusing on non-medical and wellbeing concerns. By providing this additional support patients receive holistic care that extends beyond clinical treatment.

Why have Care Navigators as part of our MSK service?

• Help and support with barriers to appointments.
• Liaise with clinicians/admin teams/clinical teams.
• A chance for patients to unpack, reflect and think about their next steps.
• Help people in multiple pathways within MSK and help make sense of their treatment plans.
• Help stop people falling through the cracks and bouncing in and out of the service.
• There are incredible resources out in the community – directing people more quickly to these can benefit the person.

Many things affect our health and wellbeing. We can all sometimes feel isolated, lonely, or stressed out by work or money. It can also be very difficult dealing with the stress of managing a long-term condition.

We now have a team of 8 people who are helping patients deal with similar concerns every day, creating personalised support plans for our patients giving them access the support and resources they need to help them feel better.

Read more about Personalised Care/ Social Prescribing on the NHS website: NHS England » Social prescribing

Or if you’d like to learn more about our MSK service you can find out more here: Community MSK Services in Sussex – Here

We’re delighted to publish the Sussex MSK Partnership Community Appointment Days Evidence Review & Evaluation, and share our learnings.

As a not-for-profit, we’re always focused on learning from our work and pushing to improve our services, ensuring exceptional care reaches everyone. This review highlights the tangible impact CADs are having on MSK care delivery and reveals key insights that will help us build on this progress. 

One of the standout successes of the initiative has been the rise in Patient-Initiated Follow-Up (PIFU) rates. More than 50% of CAD attendees opted for this approach, a significant increase compared to the 12% seen in other services. Although national evidence on PIFU’s effectiveness is still emerging, these figures suggest that CADs are making a real difference in promoting long-term self-management.

How are Community Appointment Days making a difference? 

• Supporting self-care: Over 50% of patients who attended CADs were able to move to self-care after just one session, reducing the need for ongoing clinic visits. 

• Boost in Patient-Initiated Follow-Up (PIFU): More than half of CAD attendees opted for PIFU, compared to just 12% in other services. This shows that patients are taking charge of their long-term care. 

• Overwhelmingly positive feedback: Patients and staff alike have praised the expert advice, personalised care, and collaborative environment that CADs offer. 

Helping to manage waiting times 

Although CADs weren’t specifically designed to reduce waiting times, we’ve seen another benefit: they’ve helped us keep waiting lists stable, a big achievement given national trends of increasing backlogs. 

Read evaluation in full 

We’re excited to share these findings with you. You can download the complete Evaluation Review and Report and dive into all the details. 

If you’re thinking of starting your own Community Appointment Days, check out our Essential Ingredients guide for tips on how to get started.  

Curious about how CADs work? Read more in our blog series:

• Community Appointment Days – An idea that rapidly turned into an innovation
• Community Appointment Days – What makes them tick
• What if we made community powered health, for everyone

Evaluation overview

Support for self-management: 

• CAD effectiveness: The initiative has significantly improved patient self-management, with over 50% discharged to self-care after just one CAD appointment. This suggests a reduction in the need for multiple follow-up appointments, potentially easing the burden on downstream clinics. 

• PIFU outcomes: CAD patients had a much higher rate (over 50%) of Patient Initiated Follow-Up (PIFU) as an outcome compared to other services (12%). Although the evidence base for PIFU’s effectiveness is limited, the higher rate in CAD indicates a positive impact on long-term self-management.

Patient experience: 

• Positive feedback: Patients reported overwhelmingly positive experiences, especially regarding face-to-face expert advice and personalised care. Despite some operational concerns like waiting times, patients felt involved and heard, meeting the initiative’s goal of enabling active participation in care.

Staff experience: 

• Professional development: Staff enjoyed the CAD events, appreciating the opportunity to spend quality time with patients, understand their needs, and provide tailored advice. The collaborative environment also fostered a sense of collegiality. However, there were some negative comments about operational issues, such as workflow and IT challenges. 

Adoption and attendance: 

• Good adoption: High conversion rates from invitations to attendance indicate strong adoption of CAD across different areas. However, attendance variations by age group suggest barriers for working-age adults, who may benefit from more advanced information and preparation. 

Exploration of broader health issues: 

• Broader services: Feedback indicates that CAD attendees could explore broader issues affecting their musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions giving people the opportunity to access support from other health and wellbeing services.

Impact on equity: 

• No perpetuation of inequalities: Analysis by age, gender, and deprivation suggests that the CAD initiative does not exacerbate inequalities. However, higher DNA (Did Not Attend) and cancellation rates among working-age adults indicate accessibility issues for this group. 

Waiting Times Impact:

Stable waiting times: The CAD initiative was not specifically designed to reduce waiting lists, but has shown a potential positive impact. From January to May 2024, the waiting list for Sussex MSK Partnership remained stable, while national trends show increasing volumes. Sussex MSK has also reduced the number of patients waiting over 18 weeks, outperforming the national average. Although a direct causal link between CAD and waiting list reductions cannot be confirmed, timing correlations and qualitative findings suggest a positive influence.

Potential long-term effect: Further analysis is required to determine CAD’s long-term impact on waiting times, but current patterns, combined with low Patient Initiated Follow-Up (PIFU) rates, indicate that CAD may contribute to sustained reductions if the initiative continues.

Limitations and recommendations: 

• Data and methodology limitations: The report is based on limited data from six CAD events without a comparator group. Longitudinal data and independent qualitative data collection are recommended for a more robust evaluation. 

• Key recommendations: 

• Commission independent qualitative data collection and follow-up with non-attendees. 

• Link CAD attendee data to primary and secondary care records to assess service utilisation. 

• Refine data on PIFU usage by CAD attendees, stratified by key demographics. 

• Maintain records of review and learning activities related to CAD and implement operational improvements. 

Background on MSK care: 

• Growing demand for MSK care: MSK conditions are a leading cause of disability in the UK, significantly impacting individuals and the healthcare system. The CAD initiative in Sussex aims to address these challenges by providing a comprehensive, integrated care model in a community setting. 

Conclusion: 

The CAD initiative has achieved its goals of improving patient self-management and staff engagement. There are opportunities for further operational improvements and more comprehensive data collection to enhance future evaluations.

Download the full Community Appointment Days Evidence Review & Evaluation PDF

If you’ve looked at our work at Here and you think we’d make a good partner for your next project or you’d like to share ideas, we’d love to hear from you. 

To get in touch email: collab@hereweare.org.uk 

How does our Memory Assessment Service provide personalised care that makes a real difference to people?

In my first week at Here, I was sharing space with the Brighton and Hove Memory Assessment Team. I was privileged to hear one side of a conversation between one of our Memory Support Workers (MSW) and a person who was accessing the service for the first time.  

Can you say a bit about how personalised care is the foundation of the MAS?  

Our Memory Assessment Service purpose is “To help me and my loved one get the care I need, to live my life well”. We designed the service around the understanding that everyone is different with different needs, but they also have strengths and assets. Having a memory assessment can be scary, we wanted to acknowledge this and think about how we provide our support to be built around people with the aim of offering the best experience for them.

How do we apply those principles in practice? What does it practically mean in developing and running the service?  

The main difference with the way we work is that we offer wrap-around support from a named Memory Support Worker (MSW) from the first contact call to assessment and care planning. That first contact call is really important. It’s a chance to build a relationship with someone. Our first contact call template is designed based on What Matters To You (WMTY) principles.

We ask the person about what they’re experiencing, what’s important to them, and who is important to them.  

This lets us offer support based on their strengths and needs, for example, are they struggling with personal care or food, getting out of the house. These things can affect someone’s general health as well as their memory, and support offered at this point can really help people while they’re waiting for their assessment.  

‘What’s important to you’ helps us understand what a priority for them in terms of diagnosis, treatment and support options. And ‘Who is important to you’ helps us to understand their support network and identify if they may be isolated and need extra outreach, or if families and loved ones need support also.  

People get a letter with the details of their named MSW who will be with them throughout, and when they have their appointments with the clinician, the clinician will have access to the records from the MSW and vice versa, so it is seamless for the person. 

If they do have a diagnosis, they then have a Care Planning appointment with their named MSW, who they will have known since the beginning, and the relationship they have built up helps create a really tailored care plan.  

What roles do we have and how are they different? How do we train and support staff in MSW roles?

We developed our Memory Support Worker role to provide the pre and post diagnosis support and to be that named person all the way through.  

When MSWs join us, they have a programme of shadowing across all the other roles in the service, from admin team to clinicians. They experience assessments and diagnosis appointments, and MDT (how the diagnosis is formulated). Then they shadow experienced MSW to learn about the different call types and how the templates guide you through.   They see some of the scenarios that they might experience in their new role.

They learn about communication styles and how would you alter your communication style depending on the person and what they need.  

They then have Guided Practice with an experienced MSW to either help during the call, or to feedback afterwards. This is helped by our technology allowing three-way calls.  All MSWs have monthly 1-1 supervision and monthly group supervision with other MSW.

Group supervision is an opportunity to discuss cases, share learning and support each other, and to think about potential changes that we can make to improve the service.   

Are data and case management systems structured any differently to facilitate the WMTY approach?  

We use SystmOne (S1) and the data and analytics team at Here are experts in design and use of S1 in clinical services and this has allowed us to build and continually evolve our templates in S1. As all staff are S1 users, all the relevant information about people we work with is accessible to everyone in the team.  

Each appointment type has its own template which we’ve created and adapted as we’ve developed as a service. For example, with the First Contact Call template we have added in fields for demographics and reasonable adjustments to make sure we’re thinking about what the person might need, and offering adjustments such as the type of information they need or help getting to appointment, if someone’s religion means they need appointments on certain days, or if they have a preference for the gender of their clinician, and what their interpreting needs are.  

On a service level we use PowerBI for reporting on deliverables and KPIs, but we also do additional analysis and add that to knowledge gathered through patient experience. This can help identify and address gaps, for example, we did some analysis by demographics and identified that the service possibly wasn’t meeting the needs of our LGBTQ+ patients.  

We approached Switchboard Brighton & Hove LGBT Switchboard about collaborating together to understand better the needs of the local LGBTQ+ community. As a result of this learning, we then made changes to the language we used, it influenced our collection of demographic data by placing more importance on this group to help us provide more personalised care and support and in signposting/referring people to the most appropriate services for them. This is a start, and we want to carry on listening and improving our service in this way.

What challenges can it throw up, if any?  

Everyone will be aware of the pressures that health and care, and voluntary sector organisations are under, and this does affect what we’re able to do. We try to be as proactive as possible, but there may not be capacity in the wider system to respond to this.  

In terms of running the service, there is a risk of an emotional toll on staff because of the engagement with individuals that we offer. Helping our team to learn how to manage the impact on themselves of this work is key and I mentioned above the importance we place on 1-1 supervision and group supervision, which is really important for that emotional side of things as well as the professional or practical.

We also encourage informal peer support such as team chats, colleagues giving each other opportunities to debrief after difficult calls, and support from managers to take time to process situations if needed.  In terms of leadership and always seeking to grow our practice, and develop our service, the NHS Sussex Personalised Care Network is a way to connect with others locally who are doing similar work.  

What would be your recommendation for others starting on this journey?  

In terms of developing a service in this way, it’s important to listen to the people using the service and take on board their thoughts and feelings.  

When working with individuals, the key is really active listening and being purposeful about what recommendations or support offered, not offering all the things on the list, but focusing on one step at a time and going at the person’s pace.  

Leadership in your organisation is key too, they have to really get and be committed to personalised care.  

It’s the stories that bring it to life, showing the impact that you can have by working in this way.  

When I worked as an MSW, I visited a person who was very isolated, couldn’t cook for himself, couldn’t get out because of steps up to his front door. We worked closely with Ageing Well service in Brighton & Hove, and they helped him with cooking, shopping, lunch clubs and then ultimately with a move into supported accommodation. He has a mobility scooter now and goes out nearly every day. He’s in a much better place.

Listening to what he wanted and what he was missing out on has had a massive impact on his quality of life and therefore on his condition.  

I think it’s important to remember that people are not just their health condition, and that their wider social situation can have such a huge impact on their health and wellbeing.  

Dementia is progressive, so it’s essential to focus on quality of life.

People can still live well, and it’s so rewarding to be able to help that happen.  

The Sussex Personalised Care Network aims to: 

• Improve workforce knowledge, skills and confidence in personalised care. 

• Connect staff across the Sussex to create opportunities to grow, learn and lead on personalised care together. 

• Share experience, resources and practical solutions to challenges. 

• Demonstrate impact of Personalised Care for people, workforce and system. 

The importance of personalised care

Personalised Care Week, organised each year by the Personalised Care Institute, is always an opportunity to talk about personalised care – what it is and why it matters.

In many ways, it is extraordinary that in modern health services we need to. After all, what could be more personal than health? What other service needs to be so uniquely tailored to your life?

The decline of individualised healthcare

But over the past century, healthcare has been less individualised – as we focus on better science and better efficiencies, healthcare has become less personal, more remote, and much more transactional than ever before.

In the late 20th century, when New Public Management approaches grew, the NHS, like many organisations, sought to make sure they used their skills, capabilities and resources to the best effect for our populations. So far so good, perhaps.

Except key elements of the market approach fall down in healthcare.

Efficiency and productivity vs. personalised care

In the last few years, conversations about health and care have been resolutely focused on the pressures and demands.

We have been more focused on efficiency and productivity than ever before. And it is impossible to conclude anything other than this is not working.

We are better at pathways, better at flow, have better medicines, more skilled clinicians, better hospital sites. But the health of our nation is failing, and in the words of our own health secretary, the NHS feels broken.

At the heart of this we find an issue illuminated by the language of design – we have fallen in love with solutions, rather than the problem.

With 80% of the determinants of health sitting outside of healthcare services, our focus on better tech, quicker care, slicker pathways may be misguided. In fact, we may be increasing demands – both on services and on the people who receive them.

The role of personalised care in treating multi-morbidities

So Personalised Care Week is a good time to remember this, especially as we focus on multi-morbidities. If you are living with two or more long-term health conditions (like 15% of the population), nothing will be more important than someone taking the time to understand what will improve your health, and how treatment can fit your life.

To deeply understand rather than assume what the problem is, by spending time with those affected. These insights lead to very different definitions of what the challenges are, unlocking solutions that will allow us to tailor healthcare for each and every one of us.