What if the NHS discovered a new healthcare application for all people with long term conditions, and 94% of those who tried it said it helped them to manage their condition?
What if it was low cost, didn’t involve drugs or devices, and could be delivered face to face in general practices, with some adaptations to process and staff roles?
Wouldn’t we want everyone who could benefit from it to have it, and as soon as possible?
Wouldn’t it be propelled by Innovation Accelerators, pilots, New Models, central and regional support teams, social media awareness campaigns and staff training?
Well, that thing is called personalised care and support planning (PCSP) – and new patient survey results show just how far we are from making it a universal offer.
New survey questions
For this year’s General Practice Patient Survey, people with long term conditions were asked new questions about planning their care.
Listening to external advisers including National Voices, NHS England based these around some of the key steps in the PCSP process.
The caseload
Over half (52%) the patients responding to the survey said they had a long term condition; with a fifth of these (19%) saying that their ability to do daily activities was affected ‘a lot’.
Sixteen per cent of them were not confident to manage their conditions, and 10% said the condition had caused an unexpected stay in hospital in the last year.
Care planning
People who said they had a long term condition were asked, “have you had a conversation with a healthcare professional to discuss what was important to you when managing your condition(s)?”
Less than half – 40% -- said yes.
That 40% were then asked, have you made a plan with a healthcare professional? A subgroup of 60% had.
Of these people with a plan, however, only one third said they were given or offered a written copy of it.
Discussion
So let’s look at that in numbers rather than percentages:
- 381,000 survey respondents had a long term condition, of whom
- 142,879 had a ‘what matters to me’ type conversation. Then
- 82,756 were able to turn that into a plan, and
- 26,931 were offered a written version.
- 82,756 were able to turn that into a plan, and
- 142,879 had a ‘what matters to me’ type conversation. Then
That means only 7% of this target population achieved a fully formed, written and shared care plan, based on their own view of what was important. There is a long way to go.