Rebecca Evans, Minister for Social Services and Public Health
This was published under the 2016 to 2021 administration of the Welsh Government
The Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act came into force on 6 April this year, placing the person-centred approach at the heart of our social care system. I want to set out for Assembly Members one way in which we intend to demonstrate that the new approach is working well and delivering better outcomes for people.
As part of the new statutory framework, people with care and support needs, or carers with support needs, will identify their personal outcomes and what matters to them. Individuals, their carers and families, as well as advocates where appropriate, will then work together with practitioners to find the best way for the individual to achieve those outcomes. This may include through a managed care and support plan, preventative services or the provision of information, advice and assistance.
An important step in the journey to put people at the centre of their care and support is to empower them to be able to identify and measure the progress they are making to achieve their personal outcomes. Previously, there has been no common approach which is relevant to, and owned by, both the individual and the professional.
We have therefore adopted the approach of co-production that has served us so well in our preparations for and implementation of, the Act. Building on the successful pilot led by the Social Services Improvement Agency (SSIA) and working with our local authority partners, and other stakeholders, we have developed an approach to recording and reporting progress towards personal outcomes for all local authorities in Wales.
For the first time the approach will be consistent across all local authorities in Wales. We will have a common tool to quantify the numbers of people that have achieved, or are working towards, achieving their goals. The central principle of this approach is that it is the person themselves that measures their progress. The guidance I am publishing today will assist practitioners across Wales to apply this consistently and appropriately.
As part of our managed approach, we propose that local authorities test the draft guidance for the remainder of this year. We will then reconvene practitioners in spring 2017 to analyse feedback on any practical issues which have arisen in order to revise the guidance and issue it in its final form in summer 2017.
To support implementation, the Collaborative Communications Skills Programme training, managed by the SSIA on our behalf, is training staff from every local authority in Wales in this methodology by May 2017.
The guidance is available here: http://gov.wales/topics/health/socialcare/well-being/?lang=en