What is the ‘About Me’?

The ‘About Me’ is a record of the things which you feel are important to tell healthcare professionals about your needs, strengths, values, concerns and preferences. It is what the NHS calls a ‘personalised care and support plan and is central to good quality care’.

It can be frustrating repeating your story to Healthcare Professionals, which is where ‘About Me’ helps. It is a starting point for you to summarise what matters to you and how you would like to be supported. It provides an at-a-glance way of knowing what really matters to you, it can be taken with you as you move through services and have contact with different people in health and care services. It helps us to get to know you and understand what is important to you, because you are the expert of you!

You may have a number of plans that relate to you, and your ‘About Me’ will be at the centre of them all.

How the ‘About Me’ can help you

Completing and sharing an ‘About Me’ with your Healthcare Professionals will lead to positive change for you, whatever your age or circumstances. It helps us to support you better by:

• Truly putting you at the centre of your care.
• Getting to know you as a person, rather than your health needs and conditions or where you are on a care pathway.
• Seeing you as the expert of your own life, including your skills, strengths, experience and relationships.
• Helping us build better trusting relationships by understanding what really matters to you and the way you want to be supported.
• Being an up-to-date profile of your changing circumstances and wishes.
• Helping you be a valued and active participant in conversations and decisions about your health and care.
• Providing a record of you that can move with you from service to service.