Working on person-centred planning: from amber to green light?

This article reviews the practice and policy based literature on person-centred planning in learning disability services in England. Its aim is to identify the implications for the workforce in practice.The analysis found that implementation is often described as partial or slow and characterizes reasons for this at a number of levels, including the slow pace of change in service culture and power relations, immutable funding structures, services' inflexible infrastructures, high levels of staff turnover and lack of training, inexperience among service management, inadequate staff supervision, and ambiguity among some stakeholders. Little substantial critique exists of the model itself. Analysis of the literature further reveals that the implementation of person-centred planning in practice is assisted by policy encouragement, service development and investment, favourable case reports and personal accounts, practitioner enthusiasm and positive evaluations. This article explores these to consider what facilitates the adoption of new elements of practice.