Shared decision making ensures that individuals are supported to make health and care decisions that are right for them based on their aims and goals.  It is a collaborative process in which a clinician or care professional supports a person to reach a decision about their treatment or care. It is a cornerstone of personalised care which health and care services in the UK and internationally are aiming to deliver.

There is currently no recognised standard for recording information in a person’s record about the process of shared decision making.  PRSB members have identified this as a key priority and initiated a project to standardise shared decision making 

Shared decision making should improve relationships between professionals and people using services and ensure people are more involved in decisions about their care and health generally. At its heart shared decision making is about ensuring people have a clear understanding of the benefits and risks of treatment options. Greater use of shared decision making should also reduce variations in care that are not warranted and ensure our limited resources are used more effectively across the health and care system.

By creating a PRSB standard that can be implemented in digital systems, we will enable consistency, quality and interoperability.  In due course, the decision making can also link to digitised NICE guidance enabling the whole clinical support process to be automated and streamlined.

We have long been a champion of citizen involvement in our work, but now we’ll be taking it a step further with the introduction of a people network and strategy. Strong partnerships between health and care professionals and the people they support are vital. Giving people more autonomy over their own health and wellbeing, as well as the tools to better support self-care, will play a key part in our progression.

We will diversify the groups we work with to establish how data can better meet the goals of individuals, as well as health and care providers. Through this network we will determine people’s priorities for information sharing and access, as well as campaigning for a more person-centered approach throughout the entire system.

The NHSE Palliative End of Life Care team is launching a five-year programme to improve palliative and end of life care. The PRSB is a participant in the digital workstream and has been asked to refresh the existing end of life care system standard.

We will be carrying out a review on recording, accessing and sharing end of life care information. We will be engaging with numerous stakeholders from different end of life care settings, including clinical staff and vendors.

The PRSB has established a new sponsorship board with NHSX, NHS Digital and NHS England/Improvement, which we aim to grow and develop this year. The board will discuss both ongoing work that’s been commissioned, as well as potential standards that could be developed in future. We are hoping to get involvement from all four nations, as well as representation from the CQC and the Department of Health and Social Care.

This will tie in the work of PRSB to strategic discussions at a national level, as well as giving a voice to our member organisations at the top table, and allowing us to develop a longer term work programme which supports sustainability.

The sponsorship board will have representation from NHSX, NHSD, NHS England/Improvement and AoMRC, and we aim to get more involvement from the UK’s leading health and care bodies in the months to come.

This year we have plans to redevelop the website.  The main changes will impact how the standards are viewed so that the information is more accessible.  We have been consolidating all our standards in Art Decor so that we have a reference library of standards that are up to date and maintained with consistency across the whole.

We understand that lots of people access our page, from patients to frontline professionals and data specialists. We want to ensure that everyone can find the information they need as quickly and clearly as possible. This will also include the introduction of a more comprehensive section for patients, so they can become more aware of our work and how to get involved in projects.