People and communities have the best possible outcomes because their needs are assessed. Their care, support and treatment reflects these needs and any protected equality characteristics. Services work in harmony, with people at the centre of their care. Leaders instil a culture of improvement, where understanding current outcomes and exploring best practice is part of everyday work.

Everyone is supported to see what works well and not so well based on indicators of quality. Continuous improvement is always guided by this insight.

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Supporting people to live healthier lives

• We can evidence how we successfully support people to manage their own health and wellbeing.
• We enable and empower the people we support to maintain good health and wellbeing. Where capacity permits, they take an active role in monitoring their own health and help prevent or minimise deterioration.
• We provide accessible and timely information to people, their families, and advocates to help them make choices about their future health and wellbeing.
• Where needed, we empower staff to act as advocates for people when engaging with healthcare professionals, support organisations and other agencies.
• We train and develop our staff to ensure their own understanding of health and wellbeing is in line with the latest best practice.
• We are proactive in promoting new health options to the people we support, ensuring they understand the options available. For example, the latest vaccination opportunities.
• Where we support people’s food and nutritional needs, we ensure we provide nutritious foods in line with cultural and dietary requirement, and preferences.
• To support people to maintain good physical and mental wellbeing, we ensure they have regular access to meaningful activities and wider community engagement.
• We provide opportunities for our staff to develop their expertise using national qualifications and good/best practice programmes (where applicable for the levels of care needed).
• Where practical, we develop internal champions to help promote healthy options and act as referral and support to the wider staff team.
• We’re proactive in engaging with healthcare services (e.g., speech and language therapy, community psychiatric nurses, dieticians, specialist nurses etc.).
• We have documented evidence of how we engage people and others in relation to people’s health and care needs. This includes our ongoing monitoring of health and care.
• The people we support can access mental health services, including crisis support, when they need them. This is in accordance with NICE Quality Standards.
• We ensure the people we support receive regular, high-quality oral healthcare and this is documented in their care plan. This is in accordance with NICE Quality Standards.

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