About Me
Record the most important details that a person wants to share with professionals in health and social care, for example how best to communicate with the person, how to help them feel at ease or details about how they like to take their medication.
Contents
About this standard
- Publisher
- NHS England
- Status
- Active
Show definitions of statuses
Active. Active standards are stable, maintained and have been approved, assured or endorsed for use by qualified bodies.
Deprecated Deprecated standards are available for use and are maintained, but are being phased out, so new functionality will not be added.
Retired standards Retired standards are not being maintained or supported and should not be used.
- Standard type
- Information standards
Show definitions of standard types
Collections. A Collection is a systematic gathering of a specified selection of data or information for a particular stated purpose from existing records held within health and care systems and electronic devices.
Extractions. An extraction is a type of collection that is pulled from an operational system by the data controller and transmitted to the receiver without additional processing or transcription by the sender.
Information standards. Information standards are agreed ways of doing something, written down as a set of precise criteria so they can be used as rules, guidelines, or definitions.
Technical Standards and specifications. Technical standards and specifications specify how to make information available technically including how the data is structured and transported.
- Contact point
england.standards.assurance@nhs.net
Using this standard
The Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) were commissioned by NHS England to develop the following set of resources. These have been migrated into the NHS Standards Directory and will be managed by NHS England from 01 January 2026.
- Associated medias
- About Me was originally developed as part of the Personalised Care and Support Plan and then enhanced as part of the digital social care suite of standards. This report outlines the development and consultation process of the standard.
- Rules for implementation of the standard.
- Details the potential hazards from implementing the standard with their risk rating and mitigation.
- Includes general implementation guidance. Detailed implementation guidance specific to this standard is included within the information model.
- Survey findings and analysis.
Topics and care settings
- Topic
- Care records
- Information governance
- Key care information
- Patient communication
- Pharmacy, Medicines and Prescribing
- Referrals
- Tests and diagnostics
- Care setting
- Community health
- Hospital
- Social care
Dependencies and related standards
- Dependencies
This standard needs to be reviewed and implemented alongside Shared Care Record or other infrastructure.
- Related standards
This standard is part of a wider set of national standards published by NHS England and developed by the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) for sharing information between health and social care. This includes:
- Care homes view of shared care records
- Core Information Standard (CIS)
- Hospital referral for assessment for community care and support
- Information provided by local authorities in shared care records
- Personalised care and Support Plan
- Accessible Information
- Urgent transfer from care home to hospital
Review Information
- Contributor
- Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB)
Legal basis
- Licence information
NHS England permits the copying and re-use of Information Standards, in whole or in part, for commercial and non-commercial purposes but, to protect the integrity of the Information Standards, you are not permitted to adapt, amend or decompile the Information Standards for any purpose without our prior consent.
- Licence
Crown Copyright https://digital.nhs.uk/about-nhs-digital/terms-and-conditions
More information
About Me information is the most important details that a person wants to share with professionals in health and social care. This information might include how best to communicate with the person, how to help them feel at ease or details about how they like to take their medication. This standard outlines how About Me information should be documented and shared in health and care records.
Using About Me information has been shown to achieve huge benefits for people including supporting them through hospital appointments or other care which might not have been possible or resulted in adverse outcomes without understanding key ways to work with the person.
The standard is structured to help both professionals find the information about the person quickly and help people to structure the information they wish to share.
Watch Shane’s moving story to find out how important the right information is for good care and how it can keep people well and out of hospital.
Scope‘About Me’ is for any person (or their carer/guardian where the person doesn’t have capacity) to share the things that are most important to them with the professionals and carers providing their care. It is intended to be generic and apply to everyone, from those who have complex care and support needs to those who rarely require care and/or support. It is not intended for repeating information which should be in a person’s record.
What the standard is:- UK wide and applies to adults and children.
- A standard for sharing information that the person (or somebody acting on their behalf) considers important about themselves to enable the best, personalised care and support to be provided.
- Captures an individual’s needs, preferences, and strengths to support person-centred care and self-management.
- Provides a holistic view, including what individuals enjoy and can do daily, beyond immediate care needs.
- Organised into sections to help individuals share relevant details and caregivers find key information easily.
- Applicable to everyone, from those with complex needs to those requiring minimal support.
- It does not determine an individual’s right to access social care or health services.
- It is not a person-held record and does not include clinician-recorded details like medications, conditions or reasonable adjustments.
- It is not a care or support plan but sits alongside these in a care record.
- It is not a go-to section for legal information such as Power of Attorney or Next of Kin.
- It does not prescribe what must be included – individuals choose the information they wish to share.
- It does not define who can view it; this is decided locally based on legal and information governance frameworks.
- It does not specify how it should be presented, recorded, or managed across different systems.
The standard has 7 sections which help to provide an overall structure with setting out the information and prioritising the most important information first. Only relevant sections need to be completed and keeping it prioritised and concise is important for busy professionals reading it. The 7 sections are:
- 1. What is most important to me
- 2. People who are important to me
- 3. How I communicate and how to communicate with me
- 4. My wellness
- 5. Please do and please do not
- 6. How and when to support me
- 7. Also worth knowing about me
It can be completed with just text, or with videos/multimedia files and has implementation guidance for both users and those developing systems.
It should be owned by the person, who can update it as and when required. Ideally, it will be shared via a link so professionals access the master version, not old versions copied into local systems.
Page last updated: 18 December 2025