European Institute for Person-Centred Health & Social Care
European Institute for Person-Centred Health and Social Care
We focus on academic research which informs moving away from current approaches to the management of chronic illness and towards newer models of care that are personalised, integrated and contextualised.
About the institute
A new challenge to global public health has emerged over recent decades - a dramatic rise in the incidence and prevalence of long term, chronic co- and multi-morbid, socially complex illnesses.
Of the 40 million deaths attributable to these conditions in 2015, over 15 million deaths occurred in people aged between 30 and 69 years old, during their most productive years of life.
Within Europe, these illnesses are the leading cause of death, disease and disability, accounting for approximately 86% of deaths and 77% of the disease burden, placing an increasing strain on modern health and social care systems. They account for a significant loss of economic productivity, so that for every 10% increase in deaths from these illnesses, there is a 0.5% reduction in economic growth.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the rising costs of treating these illnesses has the impending capacity to bankrupt health systems worldwide, given the direct costs of increasingly depersonalised clinical services and inadequate social support. The last decade has brought with it an increasing recognition that chronically ill patients need more comprehensive forms of assistance, towards newer models of care that are personalised, integrated and contextualised.
This way, affordable biomedical and technological advances can continue to be delivered to patients on the basis of objective clinical assessment, but within a humanistic framework of care which strives to understand their subjective experience of illness.
Given the considerable clinical and social complexities of chronic illnesses, achieving person-centred care in practice will require the coordinated actions of a variety of stakeholders, including:
- researchers and educators
- multidisciplinary clinical teams
- social care professionals
- family carers and professional carers
- chaplains
- NHS managers
- transformational leaders
- expert patients
- patient advocacy groups
- community leaders
- media professionals
- pharmaceutical and healthcare technology industries
- politicians and policy-makers.
Collectively, these stakeholders constitute what has come to be termed the ‘health and social care ecosystem'. The education of these individual stakeholders, at the appropriate level, in the appropriate context, is pivotal to a successful implementation of person-centred care.
Our members
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Our members
The Heads of the European Institute for Person-Centred Health and Social Care are:
Partnerships
The Institute is proud to be working though dynamic partnership alongside leading health and social care providers in West London, the European Society for Person Centred Healthcare and internal colleagues at the University of West London.
Find out more
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Research Centres
Find out about our multi-disciplinary areas of expertise, research, and teaching.
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Research impact
Learn how our research has helped communities locally, nationally and internationally.
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Research degrees
Find out more about PhD and Professional Doctorate opportunities and how we will support you within our active and interdisciplinary research community.
