‘Milestones’ to chart progress of personalisation

The Department of Health and local government heads plan to set out “milestones” for councils on delivering on the Putting People First agenda to personalise care.

A letter will go out next month specifying expectations for delivering on about five elements of the personalisation agenda between now and April 2011, when the three-year Putting People First programme ends.

English councils have been given £520m to transform social care from 2008-11, by increasing the use of personal budgets, improving access to information and shifting resources into preventive services.

Reasonable pace

National director for social care transformation Jeff Jerome, who is working through the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services to help councils implement personalisation, said the milestones were being “co-produced” by the DH and Adass.

“Adass is keen for Putting People First to move forward at a reasonable pace and we think it will be helpful to our members to know what a reasonable pace is,” he added.

Andrew Cozens, who has just taken over as the Local Government Association’s group strategic lead for adult social care, said it was important the milestones went beyond increasing personal budget rates.

“There needs to be progress across the whole range of areas,” he said.

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