Getting It Right For Everyone
- Written by: Elaine Mitchell-McCutcheon — Scottish Government — Improvement Collaborative Senior Policy Manager, Getting It Right For Everyone, Scottish Government
- Published: 23rd July 2025
New approach to services puts person at centre of care.
A new toolkit to help policy makers and health and social care workers design services that put individuals at the centre of all decisions about their care and wellbeing has been published.
Getting It Right For Everyone (GIRFE) is Scotland’s approach to designing and delivering public services that focus on people’s needs. It makes sure services work well for everyone who uses them.
Health and social care services are being asked to use this approach to better connect with the people they help.
The approach was created with both service users and professionals from nine Health and Social Care Partnerships. It puts individuals at the centre of decision-making, bringing all professionals involved in their care together.
People told us they have been frustrated by:
- having to repeat their story multiple times
- complicated information
- too many separate appointments
The GIRFE Team Around The Person Toolkit helps professionals provide holistic support. It includes 10 tools that can be used together or separately based on individual needs.
GIRFE principles – written from the person’s perspective – include:
- having accessible information to make decisions
- being listened to and understood as a whole person
- having choices respected
- being treated with kindness and dignity
- having professionals work together and share information appropriately
These principles apply to guardians or those with power of attorney when relevant.
The GIRFE approach involves bringing everyone who supports a person together to form a team around the individual. Led by a nominated co-ordinator, the team will work together to understand the person’s whole needs and what is important to them.
The individual will then work with a member of their team to create a plan. This document will cover all the health and social care needs of the person as well as how they like to be treated, what they like to do, their hopes and aspirations.
Meetings, involving all members of the person’s team, will be organised to allow everyone to discuss the individual’s needs. Led by the person themselves, a plan will be created that reflects their whole-life needs and is known and agreed by every professional involved in supporting the individual. The plan will evolve over time and should be regularly updated as the individual’s needs change.
The GIRFE approach has taken more than two years to develop and has been tested in real-life situations across Scotland, resulting in significant improvements to the care and lives several individuals.
One individual; who previously experienced 15 admissions to hospital in one year; saw his life turned around through this approach. His physical and mental health has improved, he has a new place to live, has connected with the community and re-connected with his family. This person said: “I have got my life back and never felt so safe.”
This case study is one of four that have been included in information on this work and is available to read here.
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