Principles Of Person Centred Care: A Guide To Delivering Individualised Care

Defining Person Centred Care

Person centred care is described in multiple principles as well as activities, but there is no precise definition of the term. Person centred care is not all about providing information to people or giving what they need. It is about considering their values, desires, lifestyles, social circumstances and family situations; perceiving such a person as an individual as well as working as a team to develop the required solutions. For one to be person-centred, services should change to fit the people needs in a way that is ideal for them. This entails working with people to find the best possible means to provide care. However, the term patient, family individualised or personalised care will be used in this write up interchangeably.

Since there are multiple aspects of individualised  centred care which include emotional support, involving friends and families as well as coordinating and integrating care, the rationale of this essay  will be to identify and explain the principles used in delivering of care which is person centred. 

As mentioned above, the term person centred care refers to multiple principles as well as activities, hence there’s no agreed definition of the term. The reason behind this is that individualised centred care is an upcoming as well as evolving field. It is also due to the fact that if care is to be individualised centred, hence what it seems like depends on the circumstances and the taste of the person getting care. What is great to a person is that healthcare can be unnecessary or undesirable to each other and can change from time to time as person’s desires change (Brooker & Latham, 2005). Other than providing an exact and inevitably limited definition of the term, the health foundation has identified a framework comprising of the principles of individualised care.  They include; providing coordinated support, care and treatment, providing personalised care, treatment and support, affording individuals  dignity, respect and compassion and lastly is supporting individuals to  understand  their strengths and abilities to allow them to live a fulfilling/independent life (Brownie & Nancarrow, 2013).

Irrespective of any intervention or specific care an individual’s receives, it needs to be done with the above principles in mind. All of the examples of individualised centred care, within the heath care experience should involve a combination of such principles. Clisset et al., (2013) purports that if a person is highly dependable, e.g. lacks capacity or is unconscious there’s possibility for more emphasis on the aspect of dignity, compassion plus respect, coordination as well as personalisation. Besides, even in such instances, it is possible to practice all of the four principles above to some extent. 

1. 1. Valuing people; valuing people is a free as well as easy to use resource established by Alzheimer’s Canada for the community sectors to help improve on the standards of support they provide.  Ideally, it has been developed to help community care providers move towards a personalised services as they shift to consumer directed care frame work. However, when it comes to valuing people as a principle of person centeredness, one should treat people with dignity as well as respect by recognising and supporting personal values, beliefs, perspectives and tastes (Dewar & Nolan, 2013). Listening to one another as well as working in partnership to design and deliver services.
2. Care is personalised; personalised care is a systematic process that is based on better conversations between an individual and health as well as social care practitioners. The main objective is to identify what’s most crucial to every individual so as to get a good life and ensure the support they receive is made as well as designed as per their desired outcomes. According to Edvardsson et al., (2010), personalised care brings together those with lived experience as well as those with technical know how to identify all the issues, create situation as well as initiate actions. This can be executed by a person, or the statutory/voluntary community services.
3. Care is coordinated; during focus groups, clients express feeling vulnerable as well as powerless in the face of a disease (Kirkley et al., 2011). However, proper coordination of care can help alleviate such feelings. Some of the sectors where patients identify where care is coordinated and lower the feeling of vulnerability include coordination of clinical care, coordination of front line patient care as well as coordinated of ancillary plus support services.
4. Access to care; patients should understand that they can access where when necessary; For instance, focusing on ambulatory care, the following areas can be of great significance to the patient. They include; availability of transportation and appointments when needed, accessibility of speciality services in the event a referral is made and lastly but not the least s clear guidelines provided on the time and how to obtain referrals. At a global point of view, there’s seismic change in thinking concerning empowering clients to take active roles during care plan (Manley et al., 2011). 

The Four Principles of Individualised Care

Information and education; during interviews, patients express their worries that they are not completely notified regarding their condition or prognosis. To counter this problem, health care units need to focus on three  form of communication which includes; information on progress of care, clinical status, progress plus prognosis and lastly is the information for enhance autonomy, health promotion and self-care (McCormack & McCane, 2011).

Physical comfort; the extent of physical comfort clients report has a tremendous impact on their experience. Three areas which are essential to patients include pain management, hospital surroundings plus environment and help with activities as well as daily living need.

Involvement of friends and family; this principle looks at the role of friends and families in the patient experience. Pope (2012) holds that family dimension of patient centred care can be identified as follows; giving accommodation for friends and families and recognising their needs, providing family members with support as care givers, involving close friends and family in decision making.

The aspect of enabling is much different from the others. Nurses and other health care professional needs to keep other principles  without the input from any person. They should represent the population they serve so as to ensure that clients are respected as well as get services which are well personalised and co-ordinate to suit their needs. However, for care to be facilitating the relationship between the patient and the healthcare expert should be a partner rather than the expert acting as the boss and the patient just following the lead. In this relationship where healthcare experts as well as patients work as a team it is good to know what is of essence to a person, make proper decision regarding their care as well as treatment and lastly identify and achieve the set target (Brooker & Latham, 2015). Most importantly, health care workers, experts and peer supporters plays a critical role in helping people develop the skills , knowledge and confidence they need to ensure that they take part in such partnership fully. 

The care act 2014 describes safeguarding as protection of the people’s right to live in a safe environment free from neglect and abuse. The principle is all about people as well as organisations working as a team to prevent and bar the risks as well as abuse experiences and neglect. Safeguarding balances the right of safety with the power to make informed decisions while at the same time ensuring the well being of the  vulnerable is promoted including taking into account their needs, views and considerations (Clisset et al., 2013). Health plus social care organisations have key responsibilities and every person has a responsibility to play. In the care act, the well being of an individual is described as relating to several factors such as personal dignity, social and economic well being, domestic, personal and family wellbeing, a person’s contribution  to the society, protection from abuse and neglects as well as physical, mental and emotional well being. All these principles of well being are of need to people with care as well as support their needs. However, there’s no order hence the need for equal measure when it comes to considering the well being of those vulnerable. 

Delivering Person Centred Care: Initiatives and Approaches

Good interpersonal skills start right with you(Dewar &Nolan, 2013). However, self awareness is an integral part of working sensitively with clients/ patients as well as colleagues.  Such skills can build over the first year in practice as well as throughout the entire career of provision of care. During such moment, the willingness to learn from mistakes as well as asking for feedback would be powerful tools that you can use to communicate.  

According to Kirkley et al., (2011), there are many roles of team working skills when it comes to upholding principles of person centred care. Many people would need to be active in their health care, hence there’s a tremendous proof that approaches to person centred care like self management and decision making can help improve a good number of factors such as care quality and health outcomes (Brownie & Nancarrow, 2013). A person centred care should have good value for money since it ensures that services are built on the tastes as well as the needs of individuals who use them. Person centred care, especially approaches like support planning and collaborative care can also help services respond to the demands of the individuals with a long term condition.

To make health care person centred, practitioners as well as services should be open to a number of initiatives and approaches which are discussed below;

Support planning and collaborative care; it involves supporting people with disabilities and long term problems to work as a team with the healthcare experts to plan their care.  According to Manley et al., (2011), the process involves investigating what matters to the client, seeking proper treatment, support, and care as well as guiding them to set targets and contemplate about the actions needed to achieve the targets.

Experienced based co-design ; this is a technique for improving  individuals experience of health care and involves gathering experiences  of clients as well as the staff and bringing them together  for the purpose of service improvement (Pope, 2012). The approach can also help staff to reframe the duties they perform, to see things from client’s point of view as well as to work with them to identify minor changes that make huge impact to client’s experience of care.

House of care; it is an approach that draws on international evidence as well as the best practices t o illustrates that effective care planning lies on key elements in a local healthcare system (Manley et al., 2011). These elements include; systems being in positions to organise resources effectively, experts being dedicated to working in partnership with clients and clients feeling involved in decisions regarding their care and treatment.

Person and family centred care; the process of improving the quality dwells on two aspects; the care processes and staff interactions with patients and their family members. This model entails shadowing patients, developing shared visions for the ideal client experience as well as operating through individual improvements. 

Conclusion

From the write up above, it has been mentioned that there is no precise definition of the term person centred care. However, there is no a single solution used to measure whether a care is person centred or not since what person is centred to an individual may differ to someone else.  Ideally, a person centred care means focusing on the principles coordination, enabling, personalisation and dignity to mention just a few. However through proper application of the above principles in a health care set, safe and effective nursing care can be met in all healthcare centres.

References

Brooker, D., & Latham, I. (2015). Person-centred dementia care: Making services better with the VIPS framework. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Brownie, S., & Nancarrow, S. (2013). Effects of person-centered care on residents and staff in aged-care facilities: a systematic review. Clinical interventions in Aging, 8, 1.

Clissett, P., Porock, D., Harwood, R. H., & Gladman, J. R. (2013). The challenges of achieving person-centred care in acute hospitals: a qualitative study of people with dementia and their families. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 50(11), 1495-1503.

Dewar, B., & Nolan, M. (2013). Caring about caring: developing a model to implement compassionate relationship centred care in an older people care setting. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 50(9), 1247-1258.

Edvardsson, D., Fetherstonhaugh, D., & Nay, R. (2010). Promoting a continuation of self and normality: person?centred care as described by people with dementia, their family members and aged care staff. Journal of clinical nursing, 19(17?18), 2611-2618.

Kirkley, C., Bamford, C., Poole, M., Arksey, H., Hughes, J., & Bond, J. (2011). The impact of organisational culture on the delivery of person?centred care in services providing respite care and short breaks for people with dementia. Health & social care in the community, 19(4), 438-448.

Manley, K., Hills, V., Yorkshire, Humber, & Marriot, S. (2011). Person-centred care: principle of nursing practice D. Nursing Standard, 25(31), 35-37.

McCormack, B., & McCance, T. (2011). Person-centred nursing: theory and practice. John Wiley & Sons. 

Pope, T. (2012). How person-centred care can improve nurses’ attitudes to hospitalised older patients. Nursing Older People, 24(1), 32-37.