The Collaborating Centre has been set up to support the development of values-based practice through shared learning. Based at St Catherine’s College in Oxford the Centre brings together a wide range of individuals and organisations working on different aspects of values-based practice around the world. Although originating primarily in mental health and social care a particular aim of the Collaborating Centre is to support extension of values-based approaches to other areas of health care such as surgery.
The Centre has been set up to facilitate collaborations between individuals and organizations concerned to develop more effective ways of working with values in health and social care.
The Centre focuses particularly on values-based approaches. This includes developing effective links with other resources for working with values (such as ethics and law, health economics, decision analysis and various areas of the medical humanities). It also includes building links with evidence-based practice. Integral to the work of the Centre is the idea that values-based and evidence-based approaches are equal partners in clinical care.