We Welcome Shadow Minister for Care & Announce Major Personalisation Project

Community Integrated Care was delighted to welcome Liz Kendall, Shadow Minister for Care & Older People, for a tour of one of our most innovative care services in the Midlands, on Friday 14th March. As part of the visit, our charity made a significant commitment to enhancing our approach to personalisation, which was supported by the MP.

The Leicester West MP met staff and people supported at Bendbow Rise, a supported living service that is home to 6 people with complex physical and learning disabilities. The service has undergone significant changes over the past year and has been successfully fully re-modelled into a truly person-centred home for the people it supports.

Previously a fairly traditional service, a refreshed staff team have adopted a number of modern person-centred practices, including all tenants being matched with staff who share their interests and outlook, completely transforming the support offered. Promoting the principles of ‘Just Enough Support’, all tenants are now enjoying fuller, more active and independent lives within their communities.

Liz’s visit coincided with the launch of our new Personalisation Programme, which will see people from all levels of the organisation come together to review our current approach to personalisation, with the aim of enhancing our person-centred practices. We announced the Programme by making a public commitment to supporting every member of staff and every person supported – almost 10,000 people in total – to produce their own One Page Profile by the end of March 2015. One Page Profiles are an important person-centred planning tool which are used to document a person’s likes, dislikes and the things important to them – by establishing these key points, the Profiles help to ensure that people receive support that is enabling and personalised to them.

During her visit, the tenants and staff team at Bendbow Rise shared their own One Page Profiles with Liz. Impressed by the approach, the MP committed to creating her own One Page Profile and made plans to write her own, with support from One Page Profile pioneer, Helen Sanderson.

Martin McGuigan, Regional Director at Community Integrated Care said: “Everyone at Bendbow Rise was thrilled to receive a visit from Liz today. As a key representative for our local community, as well as someone who has a deep understanding of our sector, it was fantastic to have the opportunity to share with her both the successes, and challenges, frontline services face everyday.”

“We invited Liz to Bendbow Rise because it is a service that is a shining example of how, with a genuinely creative and person-centred approach, great relationships can be formed and wonderful outcomes achieved for the people supported – which is what true personalisation should be all about. We will be progressing this further with our ambitious new Personalisation Project, which begins with our commitment to support our entire community to create One Page Profiles.”

Liz added: ”The care and support provided by Community Integrated Care is nothing short of inspirational. The key to their success lies in their absolute focus on personalisation, which is why I’m 100% behind their One Page Profile Project. Designing care and support around each individual is essential. Benbow Rise is a model of care that I’m determined to champion in my constituency and nationally”