Person-Centred Care Has Moved Beyond Vision - Now Comes the Hard Part. Reflections from the second global conference on person-centred care.
What did the second global conference on person-centred care GCPCC 2026 reveal about the future of health and welfare systems? Axel Wolf, GPCC Centre Director and organiser of the conference reflects on key takeaways and next steps.
The second global conference on person-centred care, GCPCC 2026, has now come to a close. I feel gratitude and energy when reflecting on the work this global community has accomplished together.
In conjunction with Vitalis, the GCPCC conference week brought together a vast and diverse network of more than 7,000 participants. The true value of this gathering, however, was not in its scale, but in the breadth of collaboration. We saw researchers, clinicians, leaders, policymakers, innovators, patient and public partners, and people with lived experience come together with a shared purpose: to examine how person-centred care translates into a practical, structural foundation for the future of our health and welfare systems.
What stood out throughout the conference was the coherence of the message. From keynotes and panels to posters and informal conversations, a common understanding emerged: person-centred care is no longer just a shared vision. It is actively becoming the baseline for how we govern, organise, lead, evaluate, and transform our systems.
Several clear directions for our continued work emerged
• Beyond either/or: Prioritisation as an ethics of interdependency: We must move away from a utilitarian approach to prioritisation that reduces care to an "either/or" equation of whether a treatment is provided or withheld. Instead, prioritisation must become a real-time discussion and partnership focused on navigating choices in great uncertainty—which is the true ethical challenge. This means concretely co-integrating clinical evidence and best practice with the patient’s own resources, capabilities, and lived experiences. It is not about a dualism in priority; it is fundamentally about an ethics of interdependency.
• From consensus to implementation and scaling on all levels: There is now a clear, shared agreement across our disciplines and sectors: person-centred care is the way forward. The focus must now shift entirely to how we implement and scale it across every level of the system—embedding it into everyday practice, professional education, organisational routines, and national policy. This requires robust governance structures that make PCC an system-wide reality rather than a series of isolated islands/projects.
• Meaningful power-sharing: Patient and public involvement must move beyond symbolic inclusion. Patients, families, and underserved communities need to shape priorities, research questions, and service design from the very beginning. This is an ethical baseline that fundamentally improves the relevance, quality, and legitimacy of our work.
• Equity and ethics by design: Person-centred care is built on the ethical recognition of each person’s vulnerabilities and right to partnership. We must design our services, technologies, and policies so that these ethical principles are built into the very structure of our systems, rather than added as an afterthought.
• Technology guided by a human compass: Digital tools and AI have great potential to support professionals, extend access, and reduce inequities. However, technology alone does not create person-centredness. That depends on values, accountability, transparency, and leadership. We must build digital transformation with people, not merely for them.
• A foundation for resilience: During times of crisis, demographic pressure, and workforce shortages, systems can easily reduce people to flows and categories. Person-centred approaches help preserve trust, continuity, and dignity under pressure, proving they are an essential part of the infrastructure for robust health and social care systems.
A heartfelt thank you to all keynote speakers, presenters, panelists, poster contributors, patient and public partners, volunteers, organisers, and participants. You made this collaborative space possible and to the growing interdisciplinary platform that it is today. Looking forward to GCPCC 2028 in Gothenburg.
Axel Wolf, GPCC Centre Director and organiser of GCPCC.