Lincolnshire evidence
How Lincolnshire is responding to national evidence
It's All About People Workforce Survey 2025
The It’s All About People team created a workforce survey to find out more about how our health and care workforce feels about implementing personalised and strengths-based ways of working. The survey has had 129 responses to date (3 November 2025).
Find out more, and complete the survey
Survey headlines:
Impact of working in a personalised way
- Improved relationships and communication
Staff report stronger, more empathetic relationships with the people they support, leading to better engagement and trust. - Enhanced job satisfaction and professional fulfilment
Many respondents feel more motivated and fulfilled in their roles when working in a personalised way. - Empowerment and independence for individuals
Personalised approaches help people manage their own health and wellbeing more effectively, promoting autonomy. - Better health and social care outcomes
Respondents noted reductions in inappropriate GP visits, hospital admissions, and improved use of community support. - Increased creativity and innovation
Working in a strengths-based way encourages staff to think outside the box and co-create solutions with individuals. - Shared decision making and person-led planning
People are increasingly seen as experts in their own lives, with more opportunities to shape their care and support.
Barriers to working in a personalised way
- Time and capacity constraints
Lack of time and heavy workloads are frequently cited as major obstacles to personalised care. - Fragmented communication between services
Poor inter-service communication and siloed working hinder joined-up, person-centred approaches. - Restrictive processes and risk-averse cultures
Bureaucratic procedures and fear of litigation limit flexibility and innovation. - Inadequate IT systems
Systems that don’t “talk to each other” prevent seamless sharing of information and continuity of care. - Lack of understanding and training
Some staff feel underprepared or unaware of personalised approaches due to limited training or exposure. - Leadership and organisational culture gaps
Where personalised care isn’t embedded at strategic levels, it struggles to gain traction across teams.
People’s Stories Panel: thematic analysis
Facilitated by the It’s All About People team, the first People’s Stories Review Panel met on 10 October 2025 to review a collection of 13 personalised care stories and undertake a thematic analysis exercise.
The Panel included people with lived experience and workforce representatives from healthcare, the community sector, and the University of Lincoln.
Key themes and insights that emerged through the panel's work:
Proactive approaches: Being proactive is linked to better outcomes for the person and the health/care system.
Wider determinants of health: Non-statutory networks of support are fundamental to wellbeing, improving health and quality of life - meeting people's emotional and social needs, skills, employment, housing, financial situation etc.
Whole person:
- Identifying wider social, environmental, emotional, physical, and mental factors, and what is important to the person is crucial to improving outcomes.
- Unrecognised changes in circumstance, physical or mental health lead to worse outcomes (eg, bereavement, pain, memory problems…).
- Listen to the person, respect their feelings/preferences, be curious, and keep the door open.
- Emotional impact of life beyond a diagnosis - supporting people to live the life they want to live is part of a proactive, preventative approach.
- Proactive palliative care planning enables people to live the best life with whatever time they have.
Carers and family: Recognise and support the central role that unpaid carers have. Involve them and the person they care for in planning to meet their wider needs as part of a 'whole-person' approach
Housing: Housing and living conditions affect physical and mental health
Trust: There is a need to take time to build trust and relationships with the people we support/provide care for
Co-ordination and communication: Importance of a key contact to act as a 'care co-ordinator' alongside a person to aid communication and advocacy. Having someone 'in your corner'.
Multi-agency working: Timely multi-agency approaches can be life-changing.
Missed opportunities: Lack of co-ordination leads to missed opportunities.
Self-care: Importance of building skills, knowledge and confidence to empower people and their carers to have more control of their wellbeing (their own 'safety net').
Independence: Recognise the importance of supporting independence as a preventative measure, and that loss of independence can lead to worse outcomes.
Isolation: Consider the significant impact that loneliness and isolation has on people's health and wellbeing.
High use of services: Identify patterns early and take a proactive approach focused on what matters to the person, to pick up unmet needs.
Queries arising from the experience of the first People’s Stories Review Panel: for further exploration/development
Data quality and bias
Panel members identified a need for moderation across the group of stories to account for the desire to show improvement, e.g., noting outcomes that may be likely but not yet achieved/observed.
The panel also noted differences in the way the information was presented, and the difference between case notes and narrative storytelling informed by the person’s voice.
Language
Frequent use of unexplained/unfamiliar abbreviations and acronyms is a barrier for the panel, which includes people who are experts by experience as well as professionals from a range of sectors.
Multiple people or services involved (e.g., carers or multi-agency teams)
Many stories featured carers or other key stakeholders. The panel therefore noted a need to adapt the Story Template to better capture indirect outcomes for family/carers as well as more accurately record the input/activity by different agencies.
Barriers /challenges faced by our workforce
The Story Template asks about barriers for the person, but should it also ask about barriers for the workforce, or what would have made their role/intervention easier.
Person's perspective
The person’s own voice and perspective could have been more included in many of the stories.
Longer-term analysis of trends
Even with the right support, life's journey is not necessarily an upward linear trajectory. The stories showed some of these fluctuations, and the panel was keen to explore a smaller subset of stories over a longer period for a better understanding of the long-term impact of the before/after scenario, or the sustainability of changes/choices etc.
People’s Stories - Social Value initial estimates
A Social Value Engine analysis of two personalised care stories collected using the People’s Stories Template has shown a social return on investment of between £8.78 - £12.09 per £1 spent. Please note that these are estimated values based on currently available data using observed and self-reported outcomes.
Social Value can be more accurately measured using ‘change over time’ scales, but this type of 'before and after measure' is not routinely used in Lincolnshire’s health and social care sector at present.
