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Year of Care

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 project aims to address.  The project is a partnership between Diabetes UK, the Department of Health, the Health Foundation and the National Diabetes Support Team.

The Year of Care concept

The theory goes back to the National Service Framework for diabetes, published in 2003, which states that the key to good outcomes is productive interactions between an engaged empowered patient and an organised proactive system.   

Care planning

The project will use care planning as the vehicle to engage and empower individuals.  The idea is to transform the annual review for a person with diabetes, which currently often just ticks if tests have been done, into a care planning consultation.

This approach gives people more time to consider and discuss information, and more options for the kind of care and support for self-management they access. It also supports them to think through and jointly decide with their healthcare professional on the right options for them.  The plan they agree will form the basis of their individual Year of Care. 

Commissioning

None of this can happen without an organised proactive system.  Every individual will need different services and support.  Systematic commissioning will be needed to ensure that the options to choose from are appropriate and that individual preferences are fed into decisions about what services and support are offered at population level.  Of course this is a huge challenge.