Patient Activation Measures & Person Centred Care

What is the ‘Patient Activation Measure’ (PAM)?

Patient activation describes the knowledge, skills and confidence a person has in managing their own health and care.Individuals have different levels of knowledge, skills and confidence to assume responsibility for their own health and well-being.

Individuals are asked to complete a short survey and based on their responses, they receive a PAM score (between 0 and 100). The resulting score places the individual at one of four levels of activation, each of which reveals insight into a range of health-related characteristics, including behaviours and outcomes. The four levels of activation are:

• Level 1: Individuals tend to be passive and feel overwhelmed by managing their own health. They may not understand their role in the care process.
• Level 2: Individuals may lack the knowledge and confidence to manage their health.
• Level 3: Individuals appear to be taking action but may still lack the confidence and skill to support their behaviours.
• Level 4: Individuals have adopted many of the behaviours needed to support their health but may not be able to maintain them in the face of life stressors.

What is Person Centred Care?

We think you are the most important person in deciding what matters in your health care. Health care professionals should work with you as an equal partner. They will seek to understand you and your carers and to give you a say in your care. They will bring together services to achieve the outcomes which are important to you. Person Centred care planning puts patient and their carers at the heart of all decisions.

How can a person-centred care plan help you?

Agreeing a care plan with your doctor and/ or nurse means being able to talk about:

• Your condition's
• How your health issues affect your life
• What is most important to you
• What you want to do
• What more you can do for yourself to improve your quality of life if you are given the right level of support

This will help to ensure that you get the right services and that you know about the wider choices available to meet all your needs, not just the medical ones. It will also help you to have a clear understanding of your medical conditions and the impact this may have on your life.

Who will be invited?

At present we are rolling this scheme out to patients who have diabetes and pre-diabetes. These patients will be given a PAM questionnaire to complete when they attend for their annual bloods. This questionnaire needs completing and returning to the surgery as soon as possible. The results from this questionnaire will be available for the nurse when you attend for your full diabetic review. The nurse will then discuss the result with you and create a personalised care plan with for you.