The study describes how person-centred planning began, discusses the existing evidence base and explains why many practitioners find it an effective way to support people with social care needs. The authors take a critical but constructive look at the claims for person-centred planning in the context of current policy and service developments. They explore issues relating to service users, thei...

The Scottish Parliament recently passed legislation on integrating healthcare and social care to improve the quality and outcomes of care and support for people with multiple and complex needs across Scotland. This ambitious legislation provides a national framework to accelerate progress in person-centred and integrated care and support for the growing number of people who have multiple physic...

In the present article, we emphasize the symptom experience perspective in person-centred care and discuss barriers to implementation of this approach. There are obstacles to overcome: the diversity of understandings of symptoms in clinical settings, the current biomedical discourse and the incompleteness of symptom research. Since the 19th century, the biomedical perspective has been powerful ...

Theoretical support and a rationale is offered for extending person-centred practice into social domains in order to promote a sense of social inclusion. This strategy is called ‘person-centred sociotherapy'. It is argued that mental and emotional distress has social and environmental causes and that person-centred sociotherapy prevents or at least mitigates the ill-effects induced by these. Th...

Currently considerable emphasis is placed on the promotion of person-centred care, which has become a watchword for good practice. This paper takes a constructively critical look at some of the assumptions underpinning person-centredness, and suggests that a relationship-centred approach to care might be more appropriate. A framework describing the potential dimensions of relationship-centred c...

Providing patients with access to their medical records can improve their communication with clinicians and increase their understanding of their illness. It’s therefore baffling that only 3% of people in the UK have online access to them. This should increase given NHSEngland’s pledge to give patients full access to their medical records by 2018. The concerns Walker et al summarise about openi...

My work covers four domains: Expert clinical practice Working within a critical companionship model has enabled me to challenge practice at the bedside. Reflective sessions within stroke care areas allow me to hear about difficulties staff face and, in turn, for me to challenge practice. Professional leadership and consultancy As a member of the professional executive committee and board of my ...