The NHS estimates that personalised care will benefit up to 2.5m people by 2024. During an era in which almost every industry harnesses the ability to provide services that would suit individual requirements, it’s equally the right time for health and social care providers to abandon the one-size-fits-all approach, and start focusing on the needs and preferences of the person as a whole.

The About Me standard supports this shift by giving people a voice to inform health and social care professionals about what matters to them. But how can we make sure that it is successfully implemented and supports better patient outcomes? We explored this topic with guests at our recent AGM…

For people like Trishna Bharadia, an award-winning patient advocate living with multiple conditions, the About Me standard is a light in the tunnel of inefficient appointments and miscommunication with healthcare providers. “The most important way in which an About Me profile would help me is that it would enable healthcare professionals to understand the conditions I live with, and provide greater space for more meaningful support for self-management and shared decision making,” she said. However, Trishna has faced some barriers in creating an About Me profile, ranging from difficulties in finding a relevant contact and a lack of awareness about the standard within her GP surgery, to the inability of the IT systems to support it.

Roland Appel, Architecture Lead at East Accord LHCR, admits that access to the standard is a must to ensure the flow of information across health and social care settings is maintained, and that healthcare providers can deliver their services effectively: “It must be an integral part of care from cradle to grave. It must be part of the clinical record, so that healthcare professionals can see it.”

Although this lack of access presents a challenge, it’s not the hardest obstacle to overcome. The solution involves changing practice, perceptions and expectations, which Andrew Coles of Person Centred Software fully understands: “Software vendors must think that they’re more than software vendors. The widespread proliferation of the About Me standard has to come from the values and the mission of the people that make the software. It’s true to our hearts at Person Centred Software, so it was an easy decision for us to champion the standard and find ways of implementing it.”

However, finding and bringing a digital solution is not the success in itself. “We need to keep the tools simple, so people aren’t overwhelmed with too many ways to engage, and make sure that healthcare providers and admin staff are usually the frontline contact when creating a profile for About Me,” Trishna added.

This is something developers at Person Centred Software took into account when implementing About Me. “The biggest challenge was making sure that the 75,000 end-users of our software are able to find it easy to engage with,” explained Andrew. “We wanted to make it part of their day-to-day processes, so it’s living, breathing, evolving information.”

At the heart of personalised care is a conversation which should take place on an individual level – and this is what About Me aims to achieve. Better patient outcomes starts with improved communication. The meaning of the standard resonates strongly with the personal experience of PRSB Non-executive Director, Sarah Brooke: “I have a son with autism. My father has dementia. I’ve seen a lot of time wasted with people trying to effectively communicate with them. I can see how the standard would effectively give anybody involved in their health and care the ability to unlock that communication much more quickly.”

If you would like to spread awareness about the importance of the About Me standard, get involved in our #CareAboutMe campaign.