Partnership boards receive guidance

Learning disability partnership boards must
make the development of person-centred approaches to commissioning,
providing and organising services a top priority, according to
Department of Health guidance published this week.

Planning with People: Towards
Person-Centred Approaches is intended to help partnership
boards produce their frameworks for person-centred planning by
April 2002, as required by the learning difficulties white paper
Valuing People.

The frameworks should include a statement of
purpose explaining how person-centred planning will contribute to
the achievement of Valuing People objectives, details of a
sub-group of the partnership board to act as an implementation
group, and an action plan.

Draft guidance was also published this week on
inter-agency working. The guidance offers practical ideas on how to
build trust and mutual understanding between partners.

To implement Valuing People, the
Department of Health announced at the end of December the
appointment of eight regional members of a new implementation
support team to join learning difficulty director of implementation
Rob Greig.

A new learning difficulty taskforce to oversee
implementation was also set up at the end of December and will be
co-chaired by Somerset social services director Chris Davies and
service user and London People First member Michelle Chinery.