Personalisation: Introductions and definitions
Introduction and definitions of the policy, terminology and intentions of the Personalisation agenda.
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Introduction to Personalisation
In 2007 the Government published Putting People First: a shared vision and commitment to the transformation of adult social care, a concordat between central and local government departments, the third and private sectors. This concordat officially introduced the idea of a personalised adult social care system, where people have maximum choice and control over their support, and services are tailored to meet the individual needs and preferences of users.
Underpinning the personalisation agenda are some key policy initiatives, including personal budgets. This is where service users are allocated their own needs-based budget to organise and purchase the support and services they feel they most need, rather than local authorities buying services on their behalf.
Other key elements of personalisation include:
- Investment in universal services such as leisure, adult education, and transport that help people lead fuller lives as citizens
- A shift towards prevention and early intervention to reduce the demand for more acute, intensive and expensive services
- An emphasis on building social capital, for example through volunteering and co-production of services
In 2008 the government committed a three-year £520 million Social Care Reform Grant to local authorities to help them make the transition to this new system. Personal budgets are available to people of substantial and critical need as assessed by the Fair Access to Care Services (FACS). It was expected that by the end of March 2011, 30% of eligible service users across all adult social service departments in England will be receiving and purchasing support through personal budgets and a 100% by March 2013.
Personalisation is about more than individual and personal budgets however. It is about fitting services around people's needs and finding creative and flexible solutions to enable the best possible outcomes for service users and communities, ensuring they have the means and support to live a full life and contribute to society.
The three-year national and regional programme Putting People First has now ended and has been replaced with the Think Local, Act Personal Partnership. Personalisation is very much the way of business, although it is likely to take many years to firmly embed itself. Providers and commissioners need to develop services to meet the demands of this new system and the future expectations of service users.
Definitions
Advocacy
Representing the interests of service users. This might include identifying support needs, gaps in service provision, and/or lobbying local authorities and service providers to meet needs more effectively.
Brokerage
The process of informing, advising and enabling people to select or purchase their preferred support.
Co-production
The process of involving service users, their families and carers in the design and delivery of their support and services.
Direct payment
A cash payment paid directly to a service user to acquire their own support rather than the council delivering it for them. One of a range of options for people getting a personal or individual budget, other choices include:
- Individual service fund: where the money is given to a service provider and the user tells them what services they want from them
- Prepaid card: personal budget is loaded onto a card that can be used to pay for services
- Third party trust: where people are chosen to administer and manage the money on a user’s behalf
- Virtual budget: where the council tells you how much your current services are worth and continues to organise them for you
Fair Access to Care Services (FACS)
System to determine eligibility for services. To qualify for a personal budget need must be assessed as 'substantial' or 'critical'.
Personal budget
A needs-based allocation of social care money to a service user to plan and purchase their own support.
- Individual budget: similar to a personal budget but combines several funding sources, such as social care money, Independent Living and Supporting People funds, Disabled Facilities Grants and Access to Work
- Personal health budget: similar to a personal budget but offering more choice and control over the health and social care services
Personalisation
The process by which state provided services are adapted to suit the needs and preferences of the service user; in social care this means everyone having choice and control over the services they receive along with greater emphasis on prevention and early intervention.
Self directed support
Emerged from work by In Control for people with learning difficulties. Refers to giving people choice, control and power over their support.
Self funder
Someone who is responsible for their own social care services costs and do not receive financial help.
Support planning
Once people know how much money they will have (resource allocation) they develop a support plan that describes the outcomes they want to achieve and how they wish to spend the money to achieve those outcomes. This is signed off by the local authority against a specific criteria and the plan is reviewed after a period.
Top five resources
A number of organisations - within and outside government - have led on the policy and practice of Personalisation in adult social care. These organisations all have extensives resources - including toolkits, case studies, research and policy guidelines.
Think Local, Act Personal
Based at the Social Care Institute for Excellence (itself a resource well worth exploring), 'Think Local, Act Personal' is the spun out resources that were previously held within the Department of Health. It is the sector-wide (by sector hear, we meant 'adult social care sector') coalition of agreement on the Transformation of social care to Personalisation.
TLAP therefore is central to developing and communicating policy and practice on personalisation, and is probably the most comprehensive resource for commissioners and providers.
Their website includes information on:
- commissioning and market development (including the National Market Development Forum)
- co-production and peer support
- user-led organisations (including guidance for commissioners)
Read their full list of resources.
Department of Health: Putting People First
Government roll-out of personalisation was led by the Department of Health (DH), who have resposnibility for both health and adult social care (even if locally, responsibilities for delivering these are divided between councils and local health commissioning structures). Within the DH, a special three year project was set up called Putting People First - the Personalisation Team.
When Putting People First was closed at the end of March 2011, the materials were moved to Think Local, Act Personal at SCIE (above) or else archived. This archived material is still available on the internet, starting on this frontpage, which includes information on individual budgets and personal budgets.
NAAPS UK and Community Catalysts
Naaps UK is the network of mirco-provider of adult social care in England - organisations operating with often only one or two staff, and supporting jusr as many people.
Since 1992, Naaps has been supporting these providers. Commissioned to do a number of pieces of research, most famously supporting market development in Oldham and Kent, NAAPS have lead on significant market development and organisational change projects, at the vanguard of personalisation. You can read their blog here and the current progess of their micro-market research, conducted with Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Subsequently, Naaps have set up Community Catalysts, a social enterprise consultancy and training organisation, through which NCVO has partnered to deliver training for infrastructure, frontline providers and public sector commissioners.
in Control
in Control are a national charity, who since 2003 have developed a 'community for change' and had an extensive role in developing and trialling national personalisation policy, toolkits, and user involevement.
Their web resources are accessible, and cover everything from the history of adult social care policy, to toolkits on person centred planning, and analysis and discussion papers on the further roll-out of personalisation to other welfare areas like homelessness.
Visit their online resource centre for a full list of their publications, toolkits and research.
National Centre for Independent Living (NCIL)
NCIL is the national body developing structures, policy and practice for User-Led Organisations (ULOs) - organisations run by and for people with disabilities. These organisations are absolutely core to the Personalisation agenda. They recognise and enable disabled people to use their skills, abilities and values to support themselves and provide adult social care services.
NCIL website lists the history of the independent living movement (a bit like in Control, above) and explains government policy and committment to fund and give infrastructure to User-Led Organisations.
Resources and further reading
The following are the latest resources and reading around personalisation from both the voluntary and statutory sectors.
Introductions and Evaluations
SCIE Personalisation: A Rough Guide (PDF 735 KB)
The Social Care Institute of Excellence (SCIE) presents an introduction to personalisation and its origins. This report reviews the implications of personalisation for the social care sector and its stakeholders.
Evaluation of the Individual Budget Pilots Programme
Presents the findings and outcomes from the Individual Budget pilot programmes held across 13 local authorities in England during 2005-2007.
ADASS/LGA Putting People First: Measuring Progress (PDF 289 KB)
Presents the findings from the 2009 ADASS/LGA survey of the implementation of personal budgets across adult social service departments in England.
Personal Budgets - Checking the results (PDF 222 KB)
Details approaches to developing outcome-based performance measures within social care. Describes developments in building an evidence base for the effectiveness of personal budgets.
Policy
Think Local, Act Personal
Think Local, Act Personal is a sector wide partnership for transforming adult social care. The website contains information for providers, services users and commissioners. Think Local, Act Personal is now hosted by Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) whose personalisation pages contain e-learning resources, news and briefings.
A Vision for Adult Social Care: Capable Communities and Active Citizens
Sets out how the Government see services being delivered for people and the new direction for adult social care structured around seven principles; personalisation is one of these.
Implications for the Voluntary and Community Sector
NCVO Public Services Delivery Network (PSDN) Personalisation: Rhetoric to Reality (PDF 568 KB)
Examines current thinking and practice around personalisation and explores implications for voluntary and community organisations and commissioners involved in planning and delivering services. Includes a series of case studies showcasing how voluntary sector providers and commissioners are putting personalisation into practice.
ACEVO: An Introduction to Personal Budgets (PDF 1.68 MB) 2010
An introductory guide to personal budgets and their roll out across England.
NCVO PSDN Personal Budgets: Opportunities and Challenges (PDF 413 KB)
Explores the opportunities and challenges presented by personal budgets for voluntary and community organisations delivering services, drawing on lessons learned from pilot projects.
Third Sector Research Centre Briefing Paper 30: The Personalisation Agenda: implications for the thrid sector (PDF 130 KB)
Sets out the major features of the personalisation agenda and the key research, policy and practice implications for the third sector.
ACEVO Making it Personal: A social market revolution. The Interim Report of the Commission on Personalisation (PDF 504 KB)
The Interim Report of the Commission on Personalisation established to review the contribution of the third sector to personalisation and the opportunities and challenges it faces, making a number of recommendations for policy makers.
ACEVO A People Power Revolution: making it real. The Report of the Commission on Personalisation
The final report of ACEVO's Commission on Personalisation.
Clive Miller, OPM Implications of Individual Budgets for Service Providers
The Office for Public Management (OPM) was commissioned by the Department of Health (DH) to facilitate a workshop aimed at exploring the implications for providers of the wide-scale use of individual budgets to underpin self directed support. This report highlights the key issues emerging during the workshop and some recommendations for further work.
Andrew Tyson, In Control, 2007 Commissioners and Providers Together: the Citizen at the Centre (PDF 312 KB)
This report by In Control explores how providers and commissioners can work together to empower people and give them more choice and control over their support. For other useful resources from In Control visit their publications and toolkits pages; of particular interest to VCOs is the support offered to organisations.
Health
Personal Health Budgets
The Department of Health hosts a useful website full of information about Personal Health Budgets; of particular interests are the update information sheets providing details of the pilot project including case studies.
User-Led Organisations (ULOs)
Essex Coalition of Disabled People and OPM: series of studies on the impact of personal budgets. A series of studies conducted by OPM and the Essex Coalition of Disabled People, reviewing the impact of personal budgets:
- Positive Impacts of Cash Payments
- Understanding Demand (pdf 279kb)
- Developing the Service Provider Market (pdf 240kb)
- Attitudes to Risk in Using Personal Budgets (pdf 236kb)
- A Collection of Case Studies (pdf 282kb)
Toolkits and Practical Guides
ACEVO Personalisation: A New Approach to Marketing (PDF 1.66MB) 2010
Marketing is an essential part of operating in a personalised social care system. There is a greater need for providers to have a clear brand and vision.
Commssioning for Personalisation: a framework for local authority commissioners (PDF 455KB)
By Putting People First, a toolkit for commissioning a personalised market for adult social care.
NAVCA Health Check
NAVCA has developed a tool for local support and development organisations to undertake a personalisation health check with local voluntary organisations. Guidance notes and an action plan are also available.
Getting Personal: measuring providers' progress towards personalisation
This is a self diagnostic tool from SCIE to help social care providers assess their readiness to deliver personalised services.
Shaping the Market Diagnostic and Action Planning Tool (PDF 246 KB)
Allows commissioners and other stake holders to understand and assess progress in towards personalisation in adult social care. Also, organisations can rate their progress and develop action plans against challenges involved in commissioning a diverse market of personalised support.
Support Planning
An introduction to support planning for different client groups.
Practical approaches to improving the lives of disabled and older people through building stronger communities
Sets out why building strong and resilient communities is a key component of the social care transformation. Puts work of councils and community partners in the context of the personalisation agenda and shares learning.
Practical Approaches to Safeguarding and Personalisation (PDF 449 KB)
This Department of Health document considers risks in the personalisation agenda and how they need to be weighted with benefits.
Carers and Personalisation: Improving Outcomes (PDF 280 KB)
A guide to how the principles of personalisation have been applied to carers, includes examples.
Common Core Principles to Support Self Care: a guide to support implementation Excellent guidance on how to create principled personalised services. By Skills for Care and Skills for Health.
