The Personalisation of Social Care: How Can a Healthcare System Be Adapted to the Specific Characteristics of People with Multiple Impairments? The case of the care of people with “rare disabilities” in France

Abstract

Since the 1980s, “personalisation” is at the centre of the evolution of disability policies and more generally of the Welfare state. It refers on one hand to the question of self-determination through the allocation of personalised budgets, and on the other to the adaptation of care to the specificities of a given person, through the development of “person-centred” care. In this article we study the issue of the personalisation of care from a point of view intermediate to these two dimensions, that of the transformation of social care organisations. Using the example of care provided to people with multiple impairments in France, we analyse how new social care organisations have addressed the diversity and specificity of the needs of these people. This analysis thus proposes a new way to think about the personalisation of policy responses implemented by the welfare state.