People with serious mental health conditions living in the community receive support from a wide range of health and social care professionals. For them to get the best care possible, it’s important for these services to join up. It’s also necessary for anyone who will be receiving care to have autonomy over their own goals, wishes and preferred outcomes so that services can be tailored to their personal needs.

The PRSB’s Community Mental Health Personalised Care and Support Plan was commissioned by NHS England. The standard will underpin the NHS enhanced community offering for mental health care, which includes therapies, trauma care, employment support and much more. It will ensure that the right information about a person and their needs is available in a tailored care plan that can be shared digitally with health and care professionals and individuals themselves wherever and whenever care is needed.

The PRSB has co-produced the standard with people who use services and professionals to include the information needed to improve care from both an individual’s and professionals’ perspectives. We analysed the original care and support plan standard that PRSB produced in 2018, to see what needed to be included to meet the needs of a community mental health care plan. The updated care plan now caters specifically for people with complex mental health needs. The final version of the standard is now available here.

The benefits