This month marks the 1st anniversary of the Universal Care Plan (UCP). So in our latest ‘Meet Team OneLondon’ feature we are delighted to introduce Tomas Ince who has a leading role in the UCP Team (7 July 2023).
What is the Universal Care Plan?
Last year we launched the Universal Care Plan for London – with an initial focus on end-of-life care plans. It is an NHS service that enables every Londoner to have their care and support wishes digitally shared with healthcare professionals across the Capital.
This helps to ensure wishes and care preferences are respected – even if a person is seen by someone from outside their normal care team. It can be accessed through both local Electronic Patient Record systems and the London Care Record.
What’s your role in OneLondon and the Universal Care Plan Team?
I am a Senior Clinical Transformation Manager within the UCP Team responsible for delivering the clinical aspects of the programme. This includes working with clinical and digital colleagues on design updates to ensure the platform meets the needs of frontline staff, as well as training and education programmes so they know how to use it.
I am also working on plans to integrate the platform with the NHS app. This is a really exciting project that will mean patients will have viewable access to their care plans through the NHS App.
What is your working background?
I am a physiotherapist by background, specialising in intermediate care. I have always enjoyed rehabilitation and working in partnership with patients to deliver their identified goals and outcomes. It has been great working in multidisciplinary teams over the past 12 years in the NHS.
What is the most exciting thing about working on the UCP programme?
The most exciting thing about working on the UCP is that it’s an iterative process. Projects are dynamic and change over time to meet stakeholders’ needs and wishes. It’s exciting to work across the whole of London to deliver such a large-scale digital platform. I hope the UCP platform will enable patients and their support networks to work in partnership with their healthcare providers to deliver outstanding personalised care.
What have you learned in this role?
I have learnt to be flexible, to seek a broad range of opinions around decisions before moving forwards to ensure that there is a wider consensus. In turn this helps to keep our key partners engaged and motivated to continue to meet the project aims.
It’s the UCP’s first anniversary month – where do you think the UCP will be by its second birthday?
Currently the UCP has been created for End of Life and palliative care pathways. However over the coming year we will be expanding the scope of the platform with additional pathways including frailty, dementia and carer contingency, followed by cardiometabolic pathways like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. All of this whilst maintaining our personalised care objectives.
In addition, by the programme’s second birthday I hope that the UCP will be fully integrated with the NHS app, giving patients more control by enabling them to have viewable access to their care plans via the app.
You can find out more about the Universal Care Plan here.
