How relationships with stakeholders underpin person-centred practice and affect the achievement of positive outcomes

For this assessment criterion, you will be required to analyse the relationship between person-centred care and positive outcomes with the ability to engage in partnership working. This means exploring how relationships with stakeholders underpin person-centred practice and positive outcomes.

Government guidance states that ‘Delivering integrated care is essential to improving outcomes for people who use health and social care services.’

Stakeholders can refer to anyone that has a vested interest in the services that you provide. That can include yourself, your colleagues, the service user, the service user’s family, advocates, other health and care professionals, your board of directors etc.

The most important stakeholder when providing care and support services will undoubtedly be the service user themselves. It is important to build trust and mutual respect with all service users and value their perspectives on their care needs. This demonstrates a person-centred approach where the individual is placed firmly at the centre of their care planning and delivery and has choice and control. In the same vein, only the individual will know what is important to them and what they wish to achieve from their care and support, therefore working in partnership with them results in positive outcomes.

Similarly, the individual’s family and friends will have expertise relating to the individual’s needs, wishes and preferences and so their input should be valued.

In 2013, National Voices published ‘A Narrative for Person-Centred Collaborative Care‘, which brought together the views of patients and service users about the things that are most important to them. The overarching summary of service user perspectives is included below:

“I can plan my care with people who work together to understand me and my carer(s), allow me control, and bring together services to achieve the outcomes important to me.”

A Narrative for Person-Centred Collaborative Care

As well as working in partnership with service users and their families, integrated working between other organisations and agencies can contribute to a better experience of care and support for service users.

An example of this would be the opportunity to provide a single assessment process. In the past, service users were required to go through multiple assessments, answering the same or similar questions (e.g. by health services and then care services or by physical health services followed by mental health services). Integrated working means that health and care agencies can work together to provide a single assessment. Similarly, if a service user moves to a new service provider, both providers should work together to make the transition as smooth as possible, keeping the service user informed about what is happening.