Your health, your way - a guide to long term conditions and self care

05/12/2009

In January 2008, the Prime Minister committed to putting in place a Patients' Prospectus setting out how the 15.4 million people living with long term conditions in England could access a choice of self care services. Your health, your way - a guide to long term conditions and self care was launched on NHS Choices on 2 November 2008, setting out the support that patients should expect to receive from their Primary Care Trusts and local authorities.

Your health, your way is not new policy, but provides an opportunity to draw together all the strands of work and information that already exist. It is primarily a generic product - applicable to all long term conditions and covers five pillars - four of which are existing DH policy for self care, plus healthy lifestyle choices.

It raises awareness to patients and the public about what support they can expect if they choose to self care. 

The core aims of Your health, your way are to empower and support people with long term conditions to understand their own needs and be able to make an informed choice about the self care support they wish to access from the resources available.  These aims should be achieved through a process of collaborative dialogue during which the individual leads the discussions based on the goals that are important to them.

Five areas of self care have been identified as being key to achieving these aims:

1.  Information
2.  Skills and knowledge training
3.  Tools and self-monitoring devices
4.  Healthy lifestyle choices
5.  Support networks

Find ot more at

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Healthcare/Longtermconditions/yourhealth/index.htm