Unifying and universalising Personalised Care? An analysis of a national curriculum with implications for policy and education relating to person-centred care

England’s National Health Service continues to signal a commitment to person-centred practice. It recently established a Personalised Care Institute which published a national Curriculum for all healthcare practitioners. The Curriculum describes an educational framework which aspires to unify approaches and universalise provision of Personalised Care. It presents 8 models and approaches and 6 components within Personalised Care as a whole, locating their unity in an underlying common core repertoire of professional capabilities and an anchoring belief in people’s strengths, resourcefulness and ability to develop their own solutions with appropriate support. The Curriculum indicates some complexity in the provision of Personalised Care but leaves unanswered questions about the theoretical coherence of the concept. It neglects several practical-ethical implementation challenges. The practical potential of the Curriculum could be strengthened by revisions to support professional engagement with the normative complexities of person-centred practice. We advocate explicit attention to: the value-laden judgements involved in deploying the Personalised Care repertoire; the problems that entrenched social inequalities and systemic prejudices pose for universal provision of Personalised Care; and neglected aspects of person-centredness (including values beyond empowerment and choice). We also suggest a need for broader discussion about competing views and the tensions involved in person-centred practice.