What is UCP?
Universal Care Plan for London
The Universal Care Plan is an NHS service that enables every Londoner to have their care and support wishes digitally shared with healthcare professionals across the capital.
A care plan is created following a conversation between a healthcare professional (such as a doctor or nurse) and the person in their care. Throughout the conversation, the healthcare professional will listen, understand and make notes on:
- What is important to the person in their day-to-day life
- Their preferences or wishes about their care
- What support they need and who is best placed to provide this
- Information about others who may be involved in that person’s care, such as relatives
The care plan is then created following this conversation using the Universal Care Plan. As soon as information is saved on the plan, it is visible to all health and care services who use it. This includes the London Ambulance Service, 111 and Out of Hours GP services who may see the person in an emergency.
The Benefits of using the UCP
- Click here to read the benefits of a UCP.
- Click here for more information about personalised care and support planning from the NHS website.
- Click here for publications and resources for care planning in palliative and end of life care, provided by NHS England.
The Technology
On behalf of London ICBs, NHS South West London has procured the Universal Care Plan to improve access to care plans, by removing the need for separate login credentials, via the London Care Record and the majority of EPRs used across London.
This technology enables information to be shared in real-time across various health care settings across the region. The solution establishes technical capability to provide interoperability with the existing health and care IT systems. It utilises an open health data platform and low code tools, which provides the ability to rapidly build dynamic care planning applications. The platform is based on a central and open persistent data store and on openEHR, which enables the system to be “interoperable”, federated, and enable systems and users to interact with citizen data.
The Universal Care Plan reduces duplication of data, improves accessibility and enables London to created shared care plans for a variety of clinical pathways, including, but not limited to, end of life care.
Universal Care Plan Programme
The Universal Care Plan Programme leads the implementation of the Universal Care Plan across the five Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in London.
The programme is split into 4 workstreams:
- IT Implementation (delivered in partnership with OneLondon and Better)
- Clinical Design & Engagement
- Information Governance
- Clinical Governance
This programme is hosted by NHS South West London on behalf of London ICBs. The Universal Care Plan is delivered in partnership with OneLondon, who lead the IT Implementation Project, and Better, who provide the digital care planning system.
Click here to read our Frequently Asked Questions.