Fundamentals of Person-Centred Healthcare Practice

Person‐centred practice is underpinned by core values of respect for personhood, authenticity, shared autonomy, respect, mutuality, therapeutic caring and healthfulness.

Person‐centred practice cannot be understood in simplistic terms of ‘caring for a person’ or ‘providing care to a person’ or ‘working therapeutically with a person’, but instead needs to embrace a variety of individual, personal, contextual and political attributes that shape how we provide healthcare.

There are several associated concepts that are similar to person‐centredness. These associated concepts may have some similarities with person‐centredness, as they may share some of the values of personhood, but not all.

There is significant evidence of the relationship between work environments that lack respect for individual personhood (characterised by staff burnout and staff turnover) and poor outcomes for service users and so having a person‐centred culture is critical to practising in a person‐centred way.

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Tanya McCance1 and Brendan McCormack2

1 Ulster University, Northern Ireland, UK

2 Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Introduction

What is person‐centred practice?

Introducing the Person̼centred Practice Framework

Prerequisites

The practice environment

Person‐centred processes

Person‐centred outcomes

Applying the framework in practice

Conclusions

Summary

References

Further reading

Have an awareness of different models and frameworks that are used across the disciplines and how they relate to, and support, the delivery of person‐centred practice.

Acquire a critical understanding of the Person‐centred Practice Framework and its component parts.

Identify and describe the challenges posed for healthcare practitioners in operationalising person‐centredness in practice.

Be able to apply the Person‐centred Practice Framework to enhance understanding of professional practice.

This chapter will explore the development of models and frameworks to support the delivery of person‐centred practice across the professions, taking account of the current evidence base. The Person‐centred Practice Framework, the framework of choice for this book, will be introduced and examined to provide a critical understanding of its component parts and how it relates to practice. This will be placed in the context of theory development and will link to key underpinning theoretical concepts described in Chapters 1and 2. The Person‐centred Practice Framework will be used to explore some of the challenges currently faced by healthcare professionals in operationalising person‐centredness. The activities provided will illustrate how application of the framework can support learning to enhance professional practice.