In the September issue of Care Management Matters magazine our very own Brendan Martin shares what’s behind the success of the Dutch care model Buurtzorg and explains what Britain can learn from the initiative. Amid all the doom & gloom about the state of health & social care in Britain, Brendan asks you to imagine what […]
A few years ago, when I was a parent-governor at the inner London state comprehensive school which my daughters attended, I found myself embroiled in a controversy about how the students should dress. We had recently lost the headteacher whose success at the school had opened a new career path for him, and his replacement […]
Buurtzorg Nederland has grown from a start-up social enterprise 17 years ago to be not only the largest and most successful Dutch provider of community health and care services but also an international exemplar of new ways of working and self-management. Unsurprisingly, its success has inspired nurses and many others all over the world, […]
In my last blog, I explored Buurtzorg’s purpose, stressing that its service helps people draw on and contribute to their own and their community’s assets, complementing them as necessary with professional inputs. Among the many striking features of how Buurtzorg achieves its purpose is that individual professionals, their teams and the whole organisation learn constantly […]
Over the past seven years Public World (now trading also as Buurtzorg Britain & Ireland) has introduced scores of organisations and hundreds of nurses and other professionals to the Buurtzorg way of working. We’ve also been a partner in the Transforming Integrated Care in the Community (TICC) project, supported by the EU. By now we have learnt […]
A couple of weeks ago I was honoured to speak at a ceremony arranged by the Thistle Foundation in Edinburgh at which certificates were awarded to the first cohort of graduates from the charity’s innovative new Academy. Nine women and men from all sorts of backgrounds and walks of life had begun the intensive programme 10 weeks earlier, […]
We are delighted to be helping an increasingly diverse range of public service organisations to introduce self-managed team work. In April alone, we worked with: two charities supporting people to live well at home with long-term conditions and learning disabilities, one in Ireland, the other in Scotland; a hospice in the south-west of England, our […]
Did I uncork the champagne on reading Camilla Cavendish’s proposal, in her independent report published last month, that the Buurtzorg model should be “driven out” in adult social care? Surely, as founder and managing director of Buurtzorg Britain & Ireland, I am delighted that an official report by a well-informed and influential commentator puts our model top […]
The UK government yesterday published its “ambitious 10-year vision for how we will transform support and care in England”. We are glad that it presents the Buurtzorg way as an example of how that vision can be realised. The White Paper, People at the Heart of Care, bases its proposals on three objectives: People have choice, […]
“Health – and social care – begins at home. Family first, then community, then the state.” So said Sajid Javid at the Conservative Party conference. It would be easier to enjoy the mirth his statement stimulated if it weren’t that it also sparked even more understandable fury. On the funny side my favourite is the […]