What is Year of Care?

The words self management and empowerment are frequently used when people talk about the future of diabetes care.

But how can healthcare professionals support and empower individual people to effectively self-manage their diabetes? 

How can we ensure that the right services are available locally to help people achieve their individual health goals, whether that's losing weight or getting back out on the football field? 

These are two questions the Year of Care programme aims to address. 

Year of Care news – where is it at?

A pilot phase of the Year of Care Programme was set up to find out what needs to happen to make care planning a reality across the population. It was successfully completed in December 2010. The pilots selected were Calderdale and Kirklees, North Tyneside and Tower Hamlets. 

Year of Care pilot case studies are now available to download 

Following a launch at the King’s Fund on Wednesday 29 June 2011, the Year of Care evaluation report and Year of Care case studies are now available to download.   

The Programme has demonstrated how to deliver personalised care in routine practice for people with diabetes and has developed commissioning support and a new commissioning model for long term conditions.
 
Year of Care has also published a guide which is available to download called ‘Thanks for the Petunias – a guide to developing and commissioning non-traditional services to support the self management of people with LTCs’ which describes the barriers and suggests solutions.

The Year of Care approach has been recognised and adopted by key bodies.  The Year of Care guide to implementing care planning has been referenced by NICE in the recent Quality Standard statement pertaining to care planning. The RCGP has also adopted Care Planning as a professional standard, based on the Year of Care House Model. 

The Programme is now working with the pilot sites and interested parties to embed and extend practice across mainstream health communities. 

The event at the King’s Fund launched the findings of the Year of Care Programme and sparked a national conversation as to how to mainstream care planning across the country.

If you have any questions about Year of Care or are interested in care planning training, please email yearofcare@diabetes.org.uk.