Hscm1 Lead Person Centred Practice Level 5 Diploma Health and Social Care

HSCM1 – Lead person centred practice

Person-centred planning is an umbrella term referring to a variety of specific approaches to helping

people who use social care services to plan their own futures. It is a way in which support for people

who use social care services can be organised as well as a way of enabling people to take a lead in

planning all aspects of how the service they receive is delivered.

Person-centred planning involves a substantial shift in thinking from that which has long governed

approaches to care. It is founded on a rights-based approach, and embraces principles of independence,

choice, inclusion and empowerment.

person-centred planning emphasises three other characteristics found wanting in them. First, it aims to

consider aspirations and capacities expressed by the service user or those speaking on their behalf,

rather than needs and deficiencies.

person-centred planning attempts to include and mobilise the individual’s family and wider social

network, as well as to use resources from the system of statutory services. The implication is that

families in particular have a stake in the arrangements made to support an individual with intellectual

disabilities in a way that service employees do not.

The other distinctive characteristic of person-centred planning is that it emphasises providing the

support required to achieve goals, rather than limiting goals to what services typically can manage.

There is almost no evidence of the effectiveness of person-centred planning compared to other

approaches. What evidence there is largely comprises individual case studies referred to in the course of

commentaries on the process and its desirability (Department of Health).

A systematic review by Rudkin and Rowe (1999) found no statistically significant outcome differences

with good statistical power for people receiving person-centred planning. Despite the lack of an...