Person centred care as a priority in services

Sometimes, people don’t feel well enough to choose at the time when important health-care decisions need to be made. This tool is about thinking ahead about some of those choices, so you can decide what matters most to you and consider some of those choices ahead of time.

This new resource provides menu planning and food service guidelines to help care homes to support the nutritional needs of residents whilst creating an enjoyable mealtime experience. The guide offers information and checklists that care homes can use to refine their offer in order to provide high quality food and drink services for residents.

This tool can be used to build a person-centred, Mental Capacity Act (MCA)-compliant care plan. It can also be used to audit existing plans, ensuring compliance with relevant laws and adaptation to a person’s changing needs and life experiences.

June 6, 2023

This episode of CMM OFF THE PAGE explores how to achieve excellence in end of life care and discusses the importance of choice for people living in a care setting at the end of their life. Podcast co-host Nadra Ahmed CBE, Executive Chairman at The National Care Association, highlights how care homes should consider cultural needs and Paula Plaskow, End of Life and Palliative Care Lead at Jewish Care, recalls how the organisation has gone above and beyond to create lasting memories for families and for people at the end of life. Podcast speaker Claire Towns, Chief Executive of Mary Stevens Hospice, shares strategies on how to support the workforce when dealing with a bereavement and Claire Henry MBE, a consultant in end of life care, offers her recommended resources and training to help providers with their continued professional development.

Our resources cover information, ideas and bite-size learning about person centred and community-based working.

This resource, developed in 2023, focuses on using ‘life story’ work to record key information about a person with dementia and their identity. The leaflet and template are designed to encourage family and friends, carers, and healthcare professionals to discuss and document essential aspects of the individual’s background, interests, and what is most important to them.

This guidance (last updated in January 2024) provides key information on culturally appropriate care for providers, including how it is relevant to CQC’s regulations and key questions. The guidance includes the following sections:

• Culturally appropriate care
• Key points about culturally appropriate care
• Examples of culturally appropriate care
• Cultural values

The ‘examples of culturally appropriate care’ section is particularly useful as it highlights various aspects of care where providers must consider cultural influences, such as religious or spiritual practices, food and drink preferences, and more.

In this newsletter we focus on culturally appropriate care—a vital element of health and social care that ensures individuals’ unique needs, preferences, and values remain at the heart of their care journey.

This guide was developed to promote understanding and awareness of culturally appropriate care, enabling professionals to embed it into everyday practice. It focuses on supporting people with learning disabilities, autistic people, and those with dementia, while also considering the experiences of individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds and the LGBT+ community. The guide is complemented by a directory of resource links and a webpage featuring a variety of training materials.

This resource has been developed with Department of Health funding. It’s main aim is to
enable leaders and managers in social care to support and develop their workforce who are
working with people with dementia from different cultures and backgrounds.

This non-accredited mini course is based on mandatory training requirements of health and social care settings. Learners can explore the different nutrients needed in the diet to stay healthy, as well as gaining awareness of adult malnutrition. The mini course is computer marked and takes approximately 1 hour to complete.

This online learning module is for staff who are new to working in Adult Social Care. It will support you in developing an awareness of ways to communicate effectively with the people in your care, so that you are better able to support them in a person-centred way.

This e-book is designed to help care home providers set and evidence goals with service users for person-centred outcomes.

This session describes how you can protect yourself and your patients from excess heat and what to do if someone is displaying symptoms of heatstroke or heat exhaustion.

As the pressure and the demand in healthcare keeps rising, it can be hard for carers to keep the focus on the person behind the condition they are treating. Therefore it is essential for care providers to keep promoting person-centred care in their team – especially during very stressful times. With our management courses and other training offers, White’s Training can support you and your team to provide excellent person-centred care. 

This programme has been designed to increase your knowledge and confidence in assessing an older person’s hydration needs and minimising their risk of poor hydration in a person-centred way.

The aim of this guide is to help you, as a health and social care worker, to provide
dementia care, which corresponds to the needs and wishes of people from a wide
range of ethnic groups, especially minority ethnic groups.

This webinar was delivered in partnership with The Outstanding Society in 2023. It provides insight into how other adult social care services involve people in different parts of the care planning process, ensuring that people’s needs continue to be met through regular reviews and support. Explore how Outstanding rated services directly involve individuals to ensure a service delivers outcomes focused person-centred care.

Everything you do as a leader and manager in adult social care must facilitate, promote and embed person-centred approaches to care and support and enhance the lives of the people accessing your service. In this module, you’ll start to explore some of the skills you need to ensure you lead truly person-centred services.

This free online training course will help learners to understand their role in supporting the preferences and needs of individuals in relation to their care or support, the development and implementation of care plans and contributing to the review of these by observing, monitoring and reporting on the care activities they’re responsible for.

This course will give an overview of providing adequate nutrition and hydration to service users. Nutrition and hydration support, needs assessments, and preferences will be discussed.

The UK population is ageing, with over 50% of UK adults expected to be 50 and over by 2035 (Office for Health Improvement & Disparities, 2022). As a manager in health and social care you will be keenly aware of the challenges that ageing presents. However, focusing on the more positive aspects of ageing rather than its limitations can help us cultivate an enriching environment where older adults are valued, respected and encouraged to flourish.

Effective communication between staff and the individuals they support is essential for accurately identifying needs and fostering trust in care relationships. Strong communication skills can enable care workers to tailor their approach to the preferences of those under their care, promoting dignity and autonomy.

This newsletter shares courses aimed at enhancing staff communication skills across various essential areas, with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of person-centred care provided by your service.

In just six weeks, you will learn why good mouth care matters, how to examine someone else’s mouth and choose the correct equipment for providing the mouth care that they need. You will learn how to clean a mouth, how to care for dentures and how to overcome many of the mouth care challenges that a resistive person can give you.

Mouth Care Matters is a Heath Education England project that aimed to improve the oral health of patients in hospital through resources and training. The project is no longer running, but the learning resources are still available online for health care professionals to access. Although these resources were created for hospital staff, many of the recommendations could be applied across a variety of health and care settings.

NHSE elfh have made the Mouth Care Matters resources available to access via their online learning portal. The resources include a range of training materials and guides, a 6 week video course, and a series of bite-sized video training sessions. 

This course is free for social care staff working in East Sussex and focuses on the role of nutrition in good health and how that may be promoted and monitored.

This online guide aims to promote excellent nutritional support for individuals living in residential care. The guidance is suited to those caring for older people who have, or are at risk of, malnutrition and covers a wide range of areas such as the dining environment, hydration, and oral health.

This eLearning course, developed with Health Education England, aims to provide an overview of the importance of oral health and how it promotes the well-being in patients you care for. The course highlights the importance of oral health including how plaque causes dental disease, why teeth should be brushed, how to care for dentures and the link between oral health and general health.

This training course will give you a greater understanding about oral health care. Whilst the content will focus on your role as a care worker, you will also find useful information for you and your family at home. After all, we all have mouths. So, let’s find out more about how to look after them and get you smiling along the way!

This course will provide you with a deeper understanding of what oral health is and will demonstrate good oral health practices. Also, we hope to help you understand how this may impact you throughout your work and explain your responsibilities when providing care.

This one-day course is for staff working in learning disabilities. The training is provided by the Behaviour Support Team, (Psychology Service), Community Learning Disability Team.

Learning outcomes
By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Define the term Active Support and assess to what extent your own current caring environment promotes Active Support
• Describe the importance of meaningful engagement for people with learning disabilities
• Recognise the 5 structural components of Active Support
• Recognise the key indicators of success when Active Support is implemented
• Draw up an action plan as to how you can get involved in Active Support.

The scope of this eLearning is to introduce the behaviours, knowledge and skills for person-centred approaches, including the values, core communication and relationship building skills, engaging people and enabling and supporting people.

This is a two-day face to face event for frontline health and social care staff working with adults who would like the opportunity to take a lead in promoting and enabling person centred practice in their service. Staff will develop skills that will support them to engage/involve/consult with people through meaningful conversations, to ensure people’s preferences are known and acted upon. 

This half-day course is designed to help support new care workers commencing their induction and working towards the Care Certificate. The course is funded for adult social care staff working for Brighton and Hove City Council, and staff working in adult social care provider services that contract with Brighton and Hove City Council.

Learning outcomes
By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Explain what the Care Certificate is
• Explain how your previous experiences, attitudes and beliefs may affect the way you work
• Define duty of care as it relates to your role, responsibilities and partnership when maintaining practice standards, code of conduct and agreed ways of working
• List and describe how to put person centred values into practice and promote them in your day to day work
• Recognise the importance of communication and confidentiality
• Complete a personal development plan.

Every individual deserves care that is tailored to their unique needs and preferences, and this course will equip you with the knowledge and skills to create person-centred care plans and maintain accurate, informative records.

This Person-Centred Care training course teaches health and social care workers how to effectively deliver person-centred care. It explains the principles of person-centred care set out by the Health Foundation and the importance of shared decision making, which help you provide individualised care to patients and improve their quality of life.

Description: One Chance to Get It Right’ (The Leadership Alliance for the Care of Dying People (June 2014) set out the approach to caring for dying people in the last few days and hours of life identifying five Priorities for Care.

This learning path identifies core and additional recommended e-learning sessions for managers in social care to enhance the quality of care for patients in the last days of life and support for their families. We have defined sessions which contain core content to support what managers in social care need to know and do to provide good care for people who are dying. The sessions that the individual manager needs to complete depends on how competent they are already with this area of practice.

Registered managers have a fundamental role in promoting person-centred support in their services. Working in a person-centred way leads to positive outcomes for people who need care and support, and the registered manager creates the culture of a service where people are treated with dignity and offered support that is relevant to their individual needs.

In this newsletter, we’re revisiting a core principle that drives effective adult social care: person-centred care. At its heart, person-centred care is about recognising that each individual has unique needs, preferences, and values, and ensuring that they remain at the centre of their own care journey. Here you will find a few resources and courses to help you create an environment that focuses on embedding person-centred ways of working throughout your service through care planning, personalisation and meaningful engagement.

The ability to build meaningful and trustworthy relationships with the individuals you support and care for is a vital part of your role as a care professional. However, professional boundaries are those rules and limits that prevent the lines between care professional and individuals in your care from becoming blurred. The ability to build meaningful and trustworthy relationships with the individuals you support and care for is a vital part of your role as a care professional. However, professional boundaries are those rules and limits that prevent the lines between care professional and individuals in your care from becoming blurred.

The Enhanced health in care homes (EHCH) framework (2023) is for primary care networks (PCNs) and providers and commissioners of community health and social care services. It guides the commissioning of and delivery arrangements for health and social care services in collaboration with care homes, so that the entire system works together to provide personalised care, improve outcomes and promote independence for people living in care. It recognises the life course of people who live in a care home and promotes the ethos of living, ageing and dying well.

This one-day course is for West Sussex Social Care staff working with individuals over 16yrs. It provides a theoretical framework and practical guidance on using strengths and asset-based approaches including Motivational Interviewing and Solutions Focused skills to strengthen motivation and confidence, in order to assist you to engage people in their own wellbeing and promote positive change.

Maintaining good oral hygiene is crucial for the overall well-being of the people we support, and it’s an essential part of providing high-quality care. Poor oral health is associated with negative health outcomes such as malnutrition and has even been shown to increase the risk of acquiring aspiration pneumonia in residential care settings. In this newsletter, we’ll explore best practices, share valuable tips, and highlight resources designed to help you and your team support the oral health needs of those in your care.

This guide was published in 2021 and focuses on how to support shared decision making within a care home. It has been co-created with a group of people who work in care homes across England.

Download materials to help unite care homes and communities, including our How-To Guide for care home managers and staff, plus posters, letter templates and more.

The UEA Hydrate Group are a research group focusing on supporting hydration care for older people living in care homes. The DrinKit toolkit is a guide developed in collaboration with care home staff to help make hydration fun. 

This online resource shares activity inspiration and best practice for incorporating life story work and reminiscence. These person-centred approaches to engagement can enhance the quality of interactions in care settings by encouraging individuals to reflect on their life and share their experiences.

When it comes to assessing the nutritional and hydration needs of residents, CQC highlight the importance of following up-to-date guidance as well as ensuring staff are able to recognise when individuals may need specialist interventions. It is also essential to accommodate specific dietary needs and preferences by considering factors such as religious and cultural backgrounds and health conditions to ensure individuals are supported in a person-centred way.

This newsletter aims to offer valuable resources and insights on promoting good nutrition and hydration in care settings, which are crucial for delivering high-quality care and enhancing the health outcomes of your residents.

This research report was published in 2024 and presents findings from one of the largest studies on the experiences of older people living in residential care in the UK. The study aimed to give a voice to older people in care homes, highlighting both their challenges and positive experiences to explore how services can enhance their quality of life. The final report identifies key themes and organises them into six areas in which providers can help older adults to:

• Thrive Relationally
• Thrive Actively
• Thrive Inclusively
• Thrive Securely
• Thrive with Dignity
• Thrive Healthily

This half-day, face-to-face, workshop is for West Sussex County Council staff as well as staff working in the Private, Voluntary, and Independent Sector and will assist you to explore how you can support customers who have visual impairments, as well as customers who are hard-of-hearing and deaf, using person-centre practice to support and empower them in their day-to-day life.

As Skills for Care states, working with families, friends, and carers is essential to delivering person-centred care. It helps providers gain a deeper understanding of an individual’s history, preferences, and the key aspects of their cultural background. This guide offers a framework to help social care employers and staff improve collaboration with families.

This virtual, half-day course aims to support you in recognising and responding to the spiritual and cultural needs of those you work with. The course is for those working in adult social care: contracted care providers, assessment staff, OTs, sheltered housing staff, and support workers.