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Person‐centred planning is central to Valuing People. This has resulted in lots of planning activity, but implementing plans in services is deeply challenging. Developing person‐centred teams is a key to implementing plans. This article presents a model for developing person‐centred teams based on research. Examples of how teams worked to implement plans are shown to illustrate this process and clarify why it requires a change in thinking as well as a change in practice.

Recent research (Robertson et al, 2005) has demonstrated that person‐centred planning (PCP) leads to positive changes for people. This research shows how PCP is associated with benefits in the areas of community involvement, contact with friends, contact with family and choice. This paper briefly describes this research and its recommendations. In addition it explores the implications for managers and professionals supporting people with learning disabilities.

Valuing People (DoH, 2001) proposes person‐centred planning (PCP) as a way for service users to exercise more power and control. Active support (AS) is also an approach designed to improve the quality of life of people with severe disabilities by enabling them to participate as fully as possible in daily activities. PCP and some of the components of AS are complementary rather than mutually exclusive. While PCP can generate ideas, AS can help implement them, and used together PCP and AS can provide a way to facilitate user participation and improve users' quality of life. This paper uses a case history to illustrate this potential, and describes how a particular form of PCP, essential lifestyle planning (ELP), was used in conjunction with some of the planning and programming components of AS.

Engagement in meaningful active and relationships is important for quality of life but, for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, engagement depends on the quality of support received from those around them. This paper describes the process of implementing person‐centred active support in the Avenues Trust, and the findings from the evaluation of the implementation in six pilot residential services. Attention was paid both to training staff and to the motivational structures within the organisation. Both the quality of support provided by staff and the level of engagement increased significantly after the introduction of person‐centred active support. In addition, people experienced decreased self‐stimulatory and injurious behaviour, increased opportunities for choice and control, and higher levels of participation in tasks of daily living, without compromising their community involvement. Staff experienced more and better practice leadership, and staff morale improved within the services, with staff generally more positive about management, more satisfied and less likely to leave. Lessons learnt about the implementation are provided.

This paper seeks to demonstrate the role of person‐centred assessment in improving the standard of care for people with dementia in acute hospitals.

The paper offers a review of recent research and literature on person centred care highlighting its role in acute hospital settings. Case studies are also used by way of illustration.

Acute hospitals are inherently complex environments which pose particular challenges for the care and management of people with dementia. Evidence drawn from the literature and recent research suggests that person‐centred assessment has the capacity to enhance the quality of care for people with dementia and improve outcomes. Patients who are understood, listened to, and responded to tend to display lower levels of challenging behaviour, are calmer, more receptive to accepting treatment and have higher levels of well being. Although experienced nurses working in acute wards often have in‐depth knowledge of older peoples' health‐related needs, a reliance on inflexible “assessment frameworks” can distract them from focusing on the individual. The routinised nature of many ward environments, shift patterns, high staff turnover and weak clinical leadership also act as barriers. Person‐centred assessment can be employed to identify the needs of people with dementia based upon their life history and patterns of daily living; it can also underpin the design and delivery of person‐centred care and treatment throughout their hospital stay.

The capacity of person‐centred care to improve care suggests that it needs to be embedded in gerontological nursing practice in acute hospital settings as a clinical and managerial priority.

This paper reports on the development and service delivery of the Supported Living Outreach Team for people with severe psychiatric, behavioural and forensic needs in a city with a population of 1.1 million. The authors discuss the reasons why the team was formed, and the partnerships it has formed with local housing and care providers in order to enable people with very complex needs to lead ordinary lives in their local communities. The pathway of team involvement is described, starting with the initial assessment, setting up and monitoring of new schemes, through to discharge. Also described are the measures the team uses to monitor its effectiveness, the benefits the team has brought to the service, and the hurdles and barriers it has had to overcome on its journey to support people with complex needs to live safely in their local communities.

This chapter reports on a hybrid sector of disability provision in Australia and the changes to the sector due to the shift to person-centred care in Australia. It explains the significant changes to the way the sector will respond to government and to client demands and how the organisations are responding to this by re-structuring and building new performance measurement systems including Social Return on Investment.

The first part of the chapter is descriptive of the change to person-centred care in the Australian disability sector using public reports. The second part of the chapter looks at the change at a micro level using an analysis of the literature.

Findings illustrate how the National Disability Insurance Scheme has brought about significant change between sectors of government and between providers, both government and non-government. Organisations have had to make significant changes to adapt to the government’s policy and especially funding change. This includes setting new governance and leadership models, changed human resource management practices and performance measurement systems.

The paper is a report relatively early in the transition phases, and therefore, more evidence is needed as the system change progresses. Still, the Australian disability sector provides a powerful example of significant hybridisation changes as a result of a shift to person-centred care.

This is a dramatic change from the Australian government to impose person-centred care. The adaptations of Australian organisations provide an interesting insight for the international community.

This paper provides a European overview of alternative approaches to integrated care for older people, drawing from a wider European project entitled PROCARE. It discusses the structural complexities that create the challenges in integrated care, compares and contrasts approaches to integrated care through a structure and process framework, and considers the place of person‐centred seamless care in European health and social care models.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the design, development, delivery and evaluation of a customised team building project on a paediatric unit.

The project content was tailored to meet the developmental needs of the staff working within the units, incorporating both soft and hard leadership approaches. A personal self development approach was used, and how this could enhance team working. Theory was embedded using innovative approaches that enabled practical application facilitating both surface and deep learning.

All staff participated and found themselves to have significantly developed both as individuals and as a team. They also identified the support required from management in order to fulfil their potential and to work effectively as a team. The teams have since completion of the project been more cohesive, are working more effectively and patient care has improved.

The project demonstrated how externally developed team building projects can be an effective approach to team building and leadership skill set acquisition, which can then be utilised in the practice arena.

Utilisation of a person centred approach to team building enables the individual to develop both as an individual and as a team – allowing them to contribute at a higher level.

This paper describes how one specialist learning disability health service has attempted to increase its focus on meeting the complex needs of people with profound learning disability (PLD) both with and without additional physical, sensory and medical impairment. Through individual assessment and intervention, carer consultation, training and supervision, research, and audit and advice to management, a multi‐disciplinary group has influenced the development of more proactive community teams for people with learning disability. This is in the context of both the publication of Signposts for Success (NHSE, 1998) and of a changing organisational culture which has embraced essential lifestyle planning, person‐centred teams, supported living and direct payments. The challenge remains of ring‐fencing sufficient resources (of time, skill and equipment), given the high‐profile and competing demands of people with milder learning disabilities but with complex mental health needs and/or challenging behaviour.