How to promote person-centred support in your team.

As the pressure and the demand in healthcare keeps rising, it can be hard for carers to keep the focus on the person behind the condition they are treating. Therefore it is essential for care providers to keep promoting person-centred care in their team – especially during very stressful times. With our management courses and other training offers, White’s Training can support you and your team to provide excellent person-centred care. 

What is person-centred care? 

The main aim of a person-centred care approach is to focus on the needs of the individual service user. By including them in decisions and respecting their opinions, you treat them as equal partners in the planning of their care. It is important to always take in consideration how your care service affects the service users – not just physically but also emotionally. Therefore, when you are providing person-centred care, communication is key. As a carer, you should encourage service users to open up to you about their needs and to take an active part in shaping their daily lives. 

Why is person-centred care important? 

When you are providing person-centred care, you are putting the person first. Many people who need support feel as if they are losing control over their own life and can only do what another person thinks is best for them. However, this shouldn’t be the case. Instead, you should help them express their feelings. This especially means to act in an ethical and respectful way and to preserve their dignity. For example, if a young female carer is providing personal care to  an older man, he might feel uncomfortable. So before providing a service that might make the service user feel uncomfortable, you should ask how they feel about it. This will improve your relationship and enable you to provide high-quality care. 

How can I help my team provide person-centred care? 

Everyone working in the Health and Social Care sector has already heard about the concept of “person-centred care”. However, without any further information and support, it can be hard to put the concept into practice. As a care provider, you should ensure that your team has either already done or has access to the training they need to provide person-centred care. As most training is very interactive and works with real life examples, it can be a great opportunity to exchange experiences and share helpful information with other carers. As their supervisor, you should also try to give regular feedback to your staff members if you see that certain treatments or activities don’t help service users. Try to offer suggestions or ideas how they can improve the service users’ well-being in other ways. Feedback also plays a big role in the relationship between the carer and their service user. Encourage your team to regularly review their service users’ care plan to ask which treatments help and which don’t. The care plan should always reflect the service users’ current preferences and priorities as, depending on the mental and physical state, they can change over time. 

At White’s Training Services, we offer management training to help managers promote person-centred care, such as our Well Led and Lead to Succeed programmes. You can also register your team for a variety of different training where we can support them to provide high-quality person-centred care. Get in touch with us to discuss you and your teams’ training needs.