Covid recovery: learning from person-centred approaches

Introduction

This paper is part of a series of 'Learning from the Pandemic' Evidence papers produced on behalf of the Covid-19 Learning and Evaluation Oversight Group. These papers bring together evidence on Scotland's response to and learning from the pandemic to inform recovery from Covid-19. The focus of this paper is Person-centred approaches.

Person-centred approaches have been frequently referenced over the last 2 -3 years in Scotland in relation to, for example, the development of new policies such as the Promise ^[1], the National Care Service ^[2], Fair Start Scotland ^[3], the Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund ^[4], Social Innovation Partnerships ^[5], the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund ^[6] and the Child Poverty Pathfinders in Dundee and Glasgow. ^[7]

In October 2021 the Scottish Government published its Covid Recovery Strategy: For a Fairer Future. ^[8] A core overarching theme within the strategy is an ambition to 'accelerate inclusive person-centred public services'. Examples of person-centred approaches within the strategy include:

• The Parental Employability Support Fund
• The No One Left Behind Approach
• Actions to help homeless people during the pandemic, and
• The establishment of Social Security Scotland

While the term 'person-centred' has been used to describe a variety of policies and approaches there is no common shared definition as to what constitutes a 'person-centred' approach, what this looks like in practice, what enables and supports a person-centred approach, and what the benefits (and costs) might be of adopting a person-centred approach to the design and delivery of policies.

Aims and Objectives

Given the prominence of the term 'person-centred approaches' within recent policy documents, this paper builds on previous, complementary work ^{[9] [10]}, providing timely evidence to support a range of organisations to: (i) actively consider what they mean when using the term 'person-centred', and to (ii) use the term meaningfully and intentionally. The paper is structured around the following research questions:

1) How can we better define and articulate the key features of person-centred approaches?

2) What are the key features of the person-centred approaches that were used in Scotland during the Covid-19 pandemic?

3) What are the strengths of and barriers to adopting person-centred approaches?

4) What factors enable public services to adopt a stronger person-centred approach?

Methods and Approach

This paper primarily focuses on four case studies of person-centred approaches to public service delivery during and immediately after the Covid-19 pandemic. These case studies (that can be found in the Annexes) were selected in order to illustrate different aspects how the term 'person-centred approaches' is applied in practice. The four case studies are:

• The Promise
• The Dundee Child Poverty Pathfinder
• The Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce
• The Expert Review of Mental Health Services at HMYOI Polmont

The case studies involved examining policy, evaluation and monitoring reports and undertaking discussions with officials working within each of these areas. These case studies provide in-depth examples of where person-centred approaches have been applied and have proved beneficial. Each case study also considers both the limitations and enabling factors that supported the approach in each case.

In addition to the case studies, the wider literature relating to person-centred approaches was reviewed, alongside a review of relevant evaluations of interventions put in place to mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.