9th January 2026
A New Year: The It's All About People Team look back...and look forward
As 2025 came to a close, the It’s All About People team sat down to reflect on a year filled with challenge, change, and powerful human impact. What emerged was a warm, honest, and energising conversation about what each team member has been proud of and where their passion is leading them in 2026.
2025...looking back
Co‑production that changes culture
Alison, our Learning and Development Lead, opened the conversation by celebrating a year deeply rooted in co‑production. From supporting Trent Care Network's community event in Saxilby to visiting schools for children with learning disabilities, and participating in patient panels, she highlighted how meaningful it was to go to where people are rather than asking them to come to us.
She's particularly proud of how the team listened with integrity, how we shaped training around real lived experience, and how she strengthened her own facilitation skills. The Language and Health Literacy development work, grounded in relationships, honesty, and respect, has been a standout achievement.
Stories that matter
For Caty, our Senior Change Manager, 2025 was the year of stories. Gathering lived‑experience narratives brought inspiration, insight, and a sense of responsibility. She described feeling “grateful” for the trust people place in her, and the importance of ensuring their voices lead to change rather than disappearing into the ether.
She is also proud of the emerging network of Community Reporters, a project she leads, which has become a thriving, creative space.
Finding the person in the health and care system
Gavin, our Communication and Marketing Lead, stressed how overwhelming system change can feel, but that there was also much cause for hope. Every week brought a new person, team or spark of possibility from across Lincolnshire. His central message is: "People want to be human with each other - to connect, be part of a community, and work together to make things better - and that’s where real change happens."
Gavin also highlighted the Personalisation in Action section of the website, a space that highlights and celebrates what is talked about but not always seen.
Across our system and our communities, incredible personalised work is happening every day. People are listening differently, working differently, and designing support around what matters most to individuals. But too often, that learning stays local, informal, or invisible.
The Personalisation in Action resource has been created to:
- Make personalisation real, not abstract
- Show what it looks like in practice, not just in policy
- Share learning across organisations and communities
- And most importantly, to celebrate the people and partnerships making it happen
"We've created a space that moves away from jargon and frameworks, and instead focuses on stories of real lived experience, because that’s where personalisation truly comes alive."
A new voice and a new confidence
For Shibina, our Project Support Officer, 2025 marked a personal turning point. After working for several years in the Continuing Healthcare (CHC) team, her recent involvement in the Quality Improvement work we've been facilitating to reimagine the Continuing Health Care journey in Lincolnshire has given her the space and confidence to speak up, contribute, raise improvement ideas directly with leaders, and reconnect with work she found meaningful.
A team that holds its shape in turbulence
Kirsteen, our Lead for Personalisation, said the thing she was most proud of was the team.
In a year where many organisations turned inward due to restructures, uncertainty and pressure, the It's All About People team has not just continued, but has stepped up its championing of personalisation across the system. We've grown and broadened relationships, created safe spaces for others to feel valued, and strengthened a growing movement of Personalisation Champions who actively generate 'ripples' across the county and beyond.
The team also saw their influence recognised, appearing in VCFSE strategic work, the Pain Management strategy, and being asked to be part of the NHS England People Promise events in January.
A quiet but powerful thread: "So what?"
Across our conversation, one phrase kept cropping up: "So what?"
These two words have become both a provocation and a guiding star for our team, pushing us to:
- evidence impact
- amplify qualitative insight
- challenge financially‑driven narratives
- make people’s experiences impossible to ignore
2026...looking forward
Deepening and expanding co‑production
Building on Alison’s proudest moments of 2025, the whole team sees 2026 as a year to scale and embed co‑production even further.
- We aim to support more services to co‑design with people from the very beginning, not midway through.
- There’s energy around refining the approach begun with CHC and exploring co‑production opportunities across neighbourhood health, and children and young people’s services.
The message is clear: co‑production has moved from “something we do” to “how we work”, and 2026 we will push that shift even deeper into system culture.
Amplifying the power of stories
Caty’s excitement for 2026 centres on "turning the ever-increasing number of individual stories collected into meaningful insight."
She’s eager to deepen thematic analysis, shape how stories inform strategic decisions, and challenge the idea that value must be reduced to pounds and pence.
In her words, 2026 is about “framing qualitative evidence in a way that changes conversations, not just reports.”
She also hopes to support the continued growth of the Community Reporter network, providing structure, encouragement and purpose for those capturing lived experience across Lincolnshire.
Growing a larger, more diverse movement
Gavin sees 2026 as the year to grow the family, bringing more people, teams, and sectors into the Our Shared Agreement movement.
This includes:
- strengthening links with the voluntary and community sector,
- building more two‑way conversations through the website and social media
- making sure personalisation stops being a niche and starts becoming “just the way we do things in Lincolnshire.”
He hopes the year brings more collaboration, less siloed working, and a stronger sense of a system driven by relationships and shared purpose.
Stepping into new spaces and building confidence
After a year of finding her voice, Shibina is ready for 2026 to be a year of using it.
She’s excited to:
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co‑deliver Language and Health Literacy development work
-
support improvements in Continuing Healthcare
-
help reshape Personalised Care and Support Planning, and Shared Decision‑Making training
- continue to build her confidence in system-wide conversations.
Her personal growth in 2025 has opened the door to new possibilities, and the team is fully behind her ambition.
Neighbourhood Health: A major opportunity on the horizon
One of the biggest areas of anticipation for the team is the emerging Neighbourhood Health Programme. We've already been involved in early conversations, and the signs are promising: personalised, strengths‑based practice sits at the heart of the thinking.
In 2026, the team aims to:
- influence the design of neighbourhood health models
- ensure lived experience is central from day one
- bring personalised approaches into both adult and children’s frameworks
- help shape how prevention and wellbeing are understood in Lincolnshire
Keeping our independence - and our identity
We recognise that 2026 will bring more organisational change and funding questions. One of their shared ambitions is to protect the unique identity and independence of the Personalisation Programme.
Our intention is unwavering:
Remain a multi‑organisational, lived‑experience‑led team that works for the whole system, not just one part of it.
Turning ripples into waves
Our reflections map a clear through‑line between our pride in the achievements of 2025 and our hopes for 2026:
- In 2025, we generated even more ripples across Lincolnshire.
- In 2026, we aim to turn those ripples into waves of change.
With stronger partnerships, more embedded and extensive co‑production, more real stories, more measurement of what matters, more champions, and new opportunities emerging, we are entering 2026 with optimism and momentum.
