The People Study
Personalisation is a central feature of the government's agenda for public sector reform. It involves thinking about public services in an entirely different way - starting with the person rather than the service.
Although the term has a wider meaning linked with the recovery agenda, in practical terms, personalisation is often used synonymously with having individual or personal budgets.
This three-year project focuses on understanding the manner in which personalisation (and its practical implementation in four Local Authority areas), impacts on the lives of individuals with severe mental illness, and the organisations that support them.
A case study approach is used to gather rich data, involving the individuals themselves, their carers and practitioners.
The study has three key objectives:
- To gain a clear understanding of how personalisation is shaping the lives of people with severe mental illness
- To understand how organisations and care staff are adapting to work with people affected by severe mental illness, within personalised models of health and social care
- To understand the role of carers in assisting people with severe mental illness to negotiate the challenges and opportunities offered by personalisation.
We will influence national policy by producing online resources, guidance and strategies for stakeholders and key policy-decision makers.
During the first stage of the project we collected data from four local authority areas across England. We investigated the context in which personalisation is being instigated across the four sites, and analysed the progress made.
Over the coming year we will be interviewing service users, carers and key workers in each site about their experiences and outcomes of personalised social care services.
Project researchers
Sarah Hamilton
Collaborators
Professor Jill Manthorpe, King’s College London
Dr Jerry Tew, University of Birmingham
Funded by
Big Lottery
Project to report in
2013
