Blogs

At National Voices we have been having some great conversations around care and support planning. Here we’d like to introduce you to one of its champions, the award-winning Dr Ian Greaves, of Gnosall Surgery, to share some of his innovative ideas. And congratulations to Ian and his fellow Staffordshire GPs for winning the NHS Innovation Challenge Prize for Dementia last month.

I was delighted if rather surprised to see today that I am in a new list of top 30 charity CEOs  on social media.  Only 2 years ago I was a self-avowed sceptic about social media, dismissive of LinkedIn,  averse to Facebook (still am) and wary of Twitter.   I reluctantly began tweeting under the National Voices @NVTweeting account in January 2012, only after gentle if irresistible encouragement from  our  communications lead Jules Acton.   Within 5 days I was chafing at the constraints of an organisational account and began tweeting as myself.  

Everywhere I go, people are talking about building the House of Care and putting in place collaborative care and support planning. It all looks so simple doesn’t it? Ask people to set a goal, tell them what local support is available to help them get there and you’ve got a basic care plan. Add in a few pieces of information (medical data and details of who to contact in case of emergency) and there it is - job done.