We know that implementing personalised care and support planning is a significant change in how teams work together, but we have also shown it can be achieved following the Year of Care approach and will reap significant benefits.  

Our experience has shown that, before embarking on the implementation of Year of Care, asking some key questions can contribute to the development of a robust strategy and clear plan:  

  • What do you hope to achieve by implementing personalised care and support planning and is the whole team clear about what it is, how it works and what difference it can make?

  • In what clinical settings/clinical conditions do you hope to implement personalised care and support planning (and where would you make a start?)

  • How engaged are your local clinical and administrative teams?

  • How are you going to involve users and who would be a credible local clinical champion?

  • How is the implementation of personalised care and support planning going to be coordinated, supported and monitored - do you have a local leadership team or an overarching steering group?

  • What support do you have to develop local IT solutions to make appropriate changes to clinical systems to implement care and support planning?

  • What funding do you have to support the delivery of training and facilitation?

  • How are individual teams going to be supported after training delivery?

  • How are you going to ensure that there is a ‘portfolio’ of services to support people in the community that they can link with following individual personalised care and support planning?

  • Do you need to develop local capacity by identifying and training local champions, trainers and facilitators?