Personalisation

The personalisation agenda has been gaining momentum in the delivery of public services for some time now and can be seen most clearly within the health sector through the work of the Personal Health Budget pilot sites being run in England under the support of the Department of Health.

Personalisation can be described as having 3 broad themes, these are:

• increasing the influence of the service user in decision making (sometimes called a person-centred approach or a ‘co-production’ approach);
• greater choice for the service user – this can include concepts such as a choice of provider, or a choice over what action (treatment) is taken
• more information for the service user.

Implications for the workforce
Personalisation presents a range of implications for the workforce including the skills and competences of staff. Skills for Health’s analysis have identified some of these skills gaps as being:

• leadership
• advocacy
• motivational questioning
• ongoing evaluation 
• commissioning.

There are three main skills categories, which employers should focus on in order to address some of the challenges in embedding more personalised services:

• basic knowledge – an understanding of what Personalisation means for both employee and service user
• technical skills – ensuring that the right staff have the right skills ie Commissioning skills for GP’s
• soft skills – the ability to understand, emphasise and engage appropriately with service users will be increasingly important.

Resources
Skills for Health have developed several resources to support you in the implementation of the Personalisation agenda.

• Examining the impact of Personalisation on the health sector’s workforce, is a report published by Skills for Health which identifies how the Personalisation agenda would impact on the health sector.
• Developing a ‘Person Centred’ workforce, is a report which examines the practical changes that can be made to address the Personalisation agenda. It was developed in partnership with Skills for Care and ACEVO (Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations).
• Common core principles for supporting self-care, is a guide to support the implementation of self-care. Organisation can embed these principles in their policies, their agreements with other agencies and their own culture and practices.
• Peer support roles in the mental health workforce – examples of current practice – a report which outlines what is happening in service with regards to the use of Peer support roles

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Some policies, strategies and guidance were developed under the previous government and as such may be subject to review by the Coalition Government.