In this Part 1, we set out by way of introduction a number of key ideas respectively about values, individuals and values-based practice and the tools we have for working with them in medicine and healthcare.

• Chapter 1 is about values in clinical decision-making. It sets the scene with three key points about values as these emerge from the opening scenario in a consultation for chronic low back pain between a GP, Dr. Gulati, and her patient, Roy Walker.

• Chapter 2 is about individuals. It takes us to the starting point for values-based practice in the complex values that bear on individual clinical judgment in clinical decision-making. Again, we get to these complex values not in a theoretical way but by following a further stage in Dr. Gulati's story as she works through some of the tools in medicine's values toolbox (professional codes, ethics, decision analysis and evidence-based practice).

• Chapter 3 gives an overview of values-based practice setting out briefly its point (it is about balanced decision-making), its premise (in mutual respect) and ten elements of the process by which it supports clinical decision-making in practice. The chapter also includes examples of how values-based approaches have been developed and applied in various areas of mental health.

Part 1 as a whole thus paves the way for the more detailed description of values-based practice that follows in the rest of the book. The chapters in Parts 2–4 illustrate a number of key elements of values-based practice considered separately, while Part 5 shows how these elements come together in practice.