Whose risk is it anyway? Risk and regulation in an era of personalisation

The advent of personalisation in adult social care and beyond poses a series of questions about future risk and regulation. Will this approach make people safer by giving them greater choice and control, or could it put people at greater risk by fragmenting public services and leaving people insufficiently supported? Against this background, this paper offers a personal view based on experience of working with policy makers, managers, practitioners, and service users in health and social care. Overall, the paper argues that the current system does not keep people sufficiently safe and that personalisation – if implemented in a manner true to its underlying principles – could significantly help the situation.