Effecting Change – evidencing culture change on person centred care
- Area of Work: The ALLIANCE
- Type: News Item
- Published: 15th November 2022

Through case studies from across Scotland, this new publication evidences culture change towards compassionate, person centred care.
For the last six years, the ALLIANCE’s Carer Voices programme has been delivering training sessions in partnership with health and social care, third sector, and public sector organisations to encourage person centred practice that is driven by a number of key values and concepts: Value Based Reflective Practice, Intelligent Kindness, ‘What Matters to You’ (WMTY) and Civility Saves Lives. In 2022, the project has now reached over 250,000 individuals across over 1,700 events to share these key messages of compassionate, person centred care to drive improvement in people’s lives.
In order to evidence and evaluate this impact, this ALLIANCE publication captures the work of a number of partners in promoting culture change within their teams and organisations. Each partner organisation has seen the impact of embedding value-based practice and rights within their structures, processes, and service delivery, and each can be viewed as a benchmark for effecting culture change in their particular sectors.
Partners included in this publication are:
- Social Security Scotland
- Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland
- Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership
- Scottish Ambulance Service
- NHS Ayrshire and Arran
- NHS Lothian
- Riverbank Day Centre
- Sheffield Teaching Hospital, Integrated Community Care
In working with each partner, the ALLIANCE has witnessed and been inspired by the impressive outcomes in each organisation. This publication is an opportunity to celebrate this work and share examples of good practice that any organisation can adopt, to foster an environment of kindness and wellbeing for staff, clients, service users, patients, families and carers.
Sara Redmond, the ALLIANCE Chief Officer of Development, said: “The work that Carer Voices and National Lead Tommy Whitelaw deliver on, explores the importance of kindness and the power of collective action. Asking people ‘What Matters to You?’ holds the potential to change the conversation and helps us understand people on a deeper level. Throughout this report, there are examples of ways that the work of Carer Voices has supported people to think about their skills in person centred care, listening to people and change the narrative from asking ‘what is wrong with you?’ to ‘What Matters to You?’”
Tommy Whitelaw, ALLIANCE Lead for Caring and Outreach, said: “It has been a privilege to work in partnership with NHS, health and social care, third sector, public sector organisations, universities, colleges, and care homes across Scotland to encourage kindness, listening and culture change that learns from the stories and experiences of carers, including my own journey, to place people at the heart.”
Read the full publication via the link below.
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