Over 100,000 care plans have now been created using the Universal Care Plan (UCP), helping to ensure Londoners get the right care wherever they are in the Capital (23 September 2025).

The UCP is an NHS service that digitally shares personalised care plans with healthcare and social care sector professionals across the Capital, helping to ensure that more patients receive the care and outcomes they desire.

Introduced in July 2022 to initially support advance and urgent care planning, the UCP has since expanded to support Londoners with sickle cell disease and other long term conditions including dementia, frailty, learning disabilities and autism. Carers can also record carer contingency plans using the UCP.

A care plan is created on the UCP system following a conversation between a patient and a professional involved in their care. Once saved, it is visible to all health and care services who use the system, including those who may care for the patient during an emergency. This helps to ensure a patient’s wishes and preferences are always considered, so they receive the care and outcomes that reflect what matters to them.

In total, 101,966 care plans have been created using the system since it was introduced, with 84,621 living Londoners currently having a care plan on the system. This is making a positive difference to joined-up care across the Capital:

• Over 30,000 care plans are viewed by health and care staff each month, including around 15,000 care plans viewed by urgent and emergency care staff.
• Over 60% of Londoners with a UCP are dying in their preferred location.
• Around 80% of people with sickle cell disease who receive care in London now have a UCP. 

Patients can also view their UCP on the NHS App or web browser helping to reassure them that their care plans are communicated correctly to those professionals looking after them. Work is underway to enable Londoners to directly input into their care plans.

Work continues across the Capital to ensure every Londoner who needs one has a UCP so more people benefit from the joined-up care it supports.

Nick Tigere, Head of the Universal Care Plan Programme, said:

“It is great that in just three years over 100,000 care plans have been created on the UCP system helping to ensure Londoners receive the right care, at the right time, provided by the right team. This is testament to the hard work of so many people and I would like to thank everyone involved. Our work continues to ensure that every Londoner who needs one has a UCP so more patients benefit. Over the years ahead the UCP also has an important role in supporting the Government’s vision of shifting care from treatment to prevention, hospital to community and analogue to digital.”

Katherine Buxton, UCP Clinical Lead for the Universal Care Plan, said:

“As a Consultant in Palliative Medicine I see first hand the positive difference the UCP is making in helping to ensure patients receive the care and outcomes they need and want. For example the UCP shares the plan of care, co-developed between a health care professional and the person themselves, which is aligned with a person’s wishes and preferences. It allows professionals, who may not have previously met the person, to be able to manage their care in line with their preferences, so if a person wishes to remain in their own home at the end of their life it will support professionals to do this whilst ensuring their symptom needs continue to be met. It is truly fantastic that over 80,000 Londoners currently have a UCP and can benefit from the joined up care the system supports.”

Barbara Benedek, member of the UCP’s People with Lived Experience Group, said:

“As a patient, it is reassuring to me to know that, if I need medical care urgently, the paramedics, A&E staff and others who will look after me, will know about my medical conditions, my medication and my wishes about my care. That is what the UCP does for Londoners. I am one of the patients on the lived experience group which is involved in the expansion of the UCP. Our role is to ensure that patient’s needs and wishes are at the core of the UCP.”

You can find out more information about the UCP here.