Healthcare delivery
feel that their organisation consistently practices personalised care, and almost three in 10 (29%) believe their employer sees it as ‘tick box exercise’. Concerningly, almost a fifth, (18%) of health and care professionals believe that personalised care has become less of a priority within their organisation over the last 12 months, and 25% said there has been a reduction in personalised care training over the same period. Among patients, nearly half (45%) felt they
had received health advice that was not suitable for them in the last two years, rising to 64% for people with multiple long-term conditions. Most believed that this could have been avoided if they had been asked about their personal circumstances, capabilities, preferences and motivations. Among those patients who reported a lack of personalised care, almost a third (32%) said their condition worsened due to this avoidable unsuitable advice, increasing to 40% for those with long-term conditions and nearly half (45%) for those with multiple conditions. More than a quarter (26%) stopped following
the avoidable unsuitable advice early - with the figure rising to 31% among those with long-term conditions and 40% for those with multiple conditions. Three in ten (30%) people who received unsuitable advice reported that it resulted in an additional GP visit that could have been avoided if personalised care principles had been followed – with this figure rising to 40% for people with long-term conditions. A fifth (20%) required an avoidable A&E visit.
According to this indicative data from patients who required additional appointments, an estimated 5 million GP appointments and 2 million A&E visits could potentially have been avoided through more personalised care, potentially saving the NHS £600 million. All this places additional pressure on NHS services and staff. In fact, almost two-fifths of health and care professionals (38%) anticipate service pressures will increase going forward as a direct result of personalised care being deprioritised. Shared decision-making could play a crucial role in mitigating these impacts, helping people feel more in control of their care decisions and, as a result, more able to self- manage their conditions. However, the report found that this vital element of personalised care, shared decision- making, was not consistently present across pathways in both primary and secondary care. For example, among individuals who were recommended surgery, only half (50%) reported being asked if they fully understood the procedure, while even fewer (48%) felt fully informed about the potential risks or side effects associated with their surgery. A similar trend was observed among those who had been recommended medication, only athird (32%) felt fully informed about the risks and side effects. Additionally, only three in ten (34%) said they were as involved as they would have liked to be in the decision to take medication, suggesting many were dissatisfied
with their level of involvement in the decision- making process. It is important to note that the impact of poor health management due to a lack of personalised care also extends beyond health and care settings and into many UK workplaces. Nine per cent of respondents are currently unemployed due to health issues, and a further 14% have taken time off work due to health reasons in the last year, highlighting a significant knock-on effect. A Personalised Care and Support Plan, accompanied by support from a Health & Wellbeing Coach and/or Social Prescribing services, could help many people manage their condition while at work or support their return to employment. While 50,000 health and care professionals
have already been trained in personalised care approaches, this is insufficient for a health and care workforce of three million people in the UK - it is less than 2% of the workforce. Addressing this shortfall is critical, particularly given the clear link between burnout among health and care professionals and their lack of autonomy to deliver the high-quality care they entered their profession to provide.
What needs to happen? To address these challenges, the Personalised Care Institute report calls for the NHS and Department of Health and Social Care to commit to developing a strategic plan to embed personalised care education throughout the health and care system, as part of the new NHS 10-Year Health Plan. While delivering 10 million personalised care interventions since 2019 initially feels like a significant achievement, the fact that there are 1.4 million appointments every day in primary care puts the number into perspective and shows that there is much still to do to ensure personalised care is business as usual. This is why a strategic plan is required. The report recommends a strategy which
includes ring-fenced budgets for NHS Trusts, NHS Integrated Care Boards, and Primary Care Training Hubs, enabling them to support at- scale training programmes, and development opportunities for teams, departments and organisations. Practicing personalised care is more challenging than it might appear, requiring
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www.clinicalservicesjournal.com I June 2025
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