Shared care involves the establishment of partnerships between professionals and laymen in which they share a common goal. Examples are an improvement in the health of a patient where there is patient empowerment to take a major degree of responsibility care and arrangements in which the life of a disadvantaged person is improved by the joint efforts of a social service and an outside lay provider. In truly shared care, the partnership is a genuinely equal one with neither partner being subservient or superior. Shared care is a term largely used in health care and social care in Great Britain.