Executive summary
In its first full year as an independent registered charity, the Coalition for Personalised Care has laid strong organisational foundations, refreshed its strategy with four clear priorities, established free individual membership alongside organisational partnership, mobilised a significant volunteer base and launched practical offers that enable personalised care to be delivered “for everyone, everywhere.”
Headline achievements
- Incorporated and operating as an independent registered charity with governance, safeguarding, policies, procedures, bank account and digital assets established
- Free membership model launched, expanding beyond partner organisations to include individual members some of whom have offered their assistance to the coalition as volunteers. 182 members recruited by end 2025
- 94 volunteers recruited from the membership to support work of the charity
- Strategy refreshed through open sessions and newsletter engagement, aligning to system changes (Integrated Care Boards holding delegated responsibility for personalised care)
- Local Leads Network created and scaled nationally with monthly peer-learning sessions (semi structured, Monday lunchtimes, 90 minutes)
- Promising Practice Library and Members’ Chat Forum designed and built; in user testing with volunteer moderators, due for open access to members in early 2026
- Personalised Care Awards: Southwest awards ran for the 4th year, awards ceremony held on 26 Nov 2025. First London region awards held on 1 Dec 2025 with 127 nominations; plan to move to a national scheme in 2026 (subject to sponsorship)
- Campaigns and influencing initiated around community strengthening and the potential of neighbourhood teams with expansion of personal health budgets (PHBs) as core delivery mechanisms for personalised care
- Funding and operating model clarified – staff time currently hosted via Sentinel CIC’s Learning & Development Centre on behalf of C4PC, transition plan and sustainability pathway in development
Purpose and vision
C4PC exists to ensure that individual voices matter and that people have choice and control over their care. We convene people with lived experience, carers, clinicians, managers, commissioners, VCSE leaders and others as peers, learning and acting together to implement personalised care in practice
Organisational development
- Transitioned from a hosted partnership to an independent charity
- Established governance essentials: trustees, constitution, safeguarding
- Policies/procedures, banking and digital estate (domains, web presence)
- Mutuality modelled by sharing C4PC policies and procedures with another organisation making a similar transition
- Clarified current operating model – no direct employees, delivery capacity hosted by Sentinel CIC – Learning & Development Centre to provide secretariat, awards delivery and network infrastructure
Next steps
- Grow and diversify the trustee board and deepen the commitment to co-production with people of lived experience in all delivery
- Formalise an Advisory Group (experienced members across NHS and local government finance/commissioning/executive roles) to provide oversight and assurance
- Prepare for an eventual Chair/Chief Executive separation when scale and funding permit
Strategy refresh and priorities (2025–26)
A co-produced refresh of the Coalition for Personalised Care’s strategy (via three open partner sessions and ongoing newsletter and members’ and volunteers’ engagement) reaffirmed the mission and adapted to the current policy context. Four strategic priorities (the “four legs of the chair”) guide all activity
- Understanding and public awareness – help everyone, everywhere understand what personalised care is and why it matters
- Implementation support – enable those delivering personalised care on the ground to learn, share and collaborate (a “network of networks”)
- Learning and development access – advocate for high quality, funded learning and development for all who need it, people with health support, carers, practitioners, MDTs, finance/commissioning teams and leaders
- Evidence of impact – grow the evidence base for experience, outcomes and system value; make it accessible and usable
All programmes are designed to contribute to one or more of these priorities.
Membership, volunteers and communications
- Free membership opened to individuals alongside organisational partners, removing financial barriers to participation. 182 members joined by end 2025.
- Volunteering – 94 volunteers recruited by end of 2025 to support work of the charity.
- Partners: the Coalition for Personalised Care has 69 partners
- Newsletter: produced regularly (approximately every two-four months content dependent, focusing on quality rather than quantity) with a new mobile first format (inline content rather than attachments). All members receive the newsletter automatically. Impact data being collected (650 subscribers, average open rate on 2025 editions 38.2%).
Data we will report annually
- Total individual members and organisational partners.
- Newsletter subscribers, open and click through rates.
- Number of volunteers active, roles, and hours contributed.
Programme delivery highlights
1. Local Leads Network (implementation support)
- Scaled from a regional (Southwest) base to a national invite list
- Monthly 90 minute sessions (Monday lunchtimes) with a semi structured format
o Part One – open peer support – “what’s working/what’s hard/who can help?” (agenda emerges from practice)
o Part Two – topic led deep dives with invited contributors (agenda set by members)
- Initial priority themes – workforce training/upskilling (including supported self management), digital self management tools and the national digital agenda, personalised care and support planning platforms, delegated health tasks (including Skills for Care alignment), personal health budgets (PHBs) and coding and links to neighbourhood teams
Planned metrics: sessions delivered; average attendance; sectors/regions represented; participant satisfaction; actions taken as a result.
2. Promising Practice Library and Member Chat Forum (evidence & learning)
- Online repositories co designed – user testing underway with volunteers, member only access to ensure safeguarding and quality (membership is free)
- Moderation by trained volunteers to prevent spam and ensure appropriateness
- Broad scope intentionally titled “Promising Practice” to include business cases, case studies and local evaluations alongside formal research (addressing historic barriers to publication in national gateways)
- Go live – targeted early 2026 following testing
Planned metrics: resources uploaded; domains covered; downloads/views; case studies with outcomes data; contributor spread; moderation turnaround.
3. Personalised Care Awards (recognition, learning and profile)
- Southwest Awards – 4th annual event on 26 Nov 2025
- London Awards – first year, awards ceremony held on 1 Dec 2025. 128 nominations received from across the city
- Future aim – National Personalised Care Awards 2026 (regional winners feeding a national final)
- Sponsorship – seeking sponsors to keep nominations and attendance free, ensuring inclusivity
Planned metrics: nominations; attendance; partner reach; media/social impressions; sponsorship value; stories captured for the Promising Practice Library.
Campaigns and influencing
- Community Strengthening – convening leaders and practitioners to champion place based approaches that enable personalised care, building a coalition of signatories and allies
- Neighbourhood health and PHBs – publishing and promoting the case for personalised care as the core delivery model for neighbourhood teams, including the role of PHBs in enabling choice and control
- Briefings for opinion formers – developing accessible rights based guides for councillors and MPs to support casework and public understanding
Planned metrics: signatories/endorsements; briefings issued; downloads; mentions in system plans; policy and practice changes attributed.
Partnerships, learning and system relationships
- Personalised Care Institute (PCI) – regular engagement around practitioner training (advocating for sustainable funding, complementary roles between PCI’s practitioner focus and C4PC’s people focused learning)
- Wider VCSE and system partners – strengthening ties across regions, exploring mayoral combined authorities as partners/sponsors for awards and neighbourhood health initiatives
- Policy environment – strategy calibrated to the cessation of NHS England’s central personalised care programme and the delegation to ICBs, focus shifted from national policy change to implementation at place
Funding, sustainability and governance roadmap
- Current operating model – delivery capacity hosted by Sentinel CIC – Learning & Development Centre on C4PC’s behalf
Income priorities for 2026
- Personal Health Budget (PHB) Expansion Support Offer to ICBs – a scalable, priced support programme aligned to national ambitions (options appraisal due in Dec 2025). Offer to be promoted openly, potential for national commissioning at lower unit cost
- Awards programme sponsorship – regional and national
- Solidarity Fund (National Lottery) application – targeted support for communities with highest need to build community strength and personalised care capability where local readiness is low
- Sellable services – eg VCSE Personalised Care “Star Rating” quality framework with subsidised places for micro providers; accessible information standards advisory; tailored learning and development and board/leadership support (including lived experience governance)
- Sustainability goal – build towards a £1m operating budget for 2026/27 with a balanced portfolio (grants, contracts, sponsorship, fee for service)
Lived experience at the core
- Membership and programme design ensure people with lived experience are peers and co producers
- Proposal to establish a dedicated Lived Experience Workstream (eg led by a specialist such as Jono Broad) to train and support lived experience partners in QI methods, board skills, coaching and system navigation and to embed lived experience governance options within C4PC’s structure
Risks and mitigations
- Funding volatility – diversify income, stage gate growth, seek multi year support, develop rapid “underspend-ready” offers
- Capacity constraints – volunteer mobilisation and moderation, hosted staffing, phased launches (eg Promising Practice Library early 2026)
- Policy churn – maintain non partisan positioning, work with ICBs/places, provide practical implementation offers
- Quality and safeguarding online – moderated upload process, member only access, clear community standards.
Priorities for the next 12 months (Dec 2025 – Nov 2026)
- Launch the Promising Practice Library and Members’ Forum and seed with high quality content, also the YouTube channel and Podcast series
- Deliver the 2026 Awards cycle across additional regions, secure multi region sponsorship and at least one mayoral partner
- Publish and market the PHB Expansion Support Offer, secure first commissions, promote information and evidence impact
- Mobilise the Lived Experience Workstream and advisory group, strengthen governance and member oversight
- Grow membership, volunteers, partners, networks, services supporting personalised care expansion and publish engagement and impact data
- Secure grant/contract income for implementation support for delivery plan
- Amplify the Community Strengthening campaign and develop further policy influencing
- Engage areas willing to be test and learn sites for the integrated neighbourhood operating budgets proposal
- Develop research collaboration into the impact of personalised care
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to our members, partners and volunteers who have modelled allyship, shared learning and kept lived experience at the centre. Special thanks to Sentinel CIC’s Learning & Development Centre for hosting capacity during this start up phase.