Stages Of Assessment

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Stages Of Assessment
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The Stages of Assessment for the Single
Assessment Process

• Publishing information about services.
• Completing assessment - the four types
• Evaluating assessment information
• Deciding on what help should be offered
• Care Planning (leading to service delivery)
• Monitoring and review

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4 types of assessment

• Contact Assessment (including the collection of
  basic personal information)
• Overview Assessment a holistic approach
• Specialist Assessment
• Comprehensive Assessment

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Contact Assessment

• Purpose
• A first contact between an older person and
  health or social services
• Basic personal information is collected
• Nature of the presenting problem is established
• The potential presence of wider health and
  social care problems is explored.

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Seven Key Issues

• 1. The nature of the presenting problem
• 2. Significance of the problem for the older
  person.
• 3. Length of time the problem has been
  experienced
• 4. Potential solutions identified by the older
  person
• 5. Other problems experienced by the older person
• 6. Recent life events or relevant changes
• 7. The perceptions of family members and carers

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Overview Assessment

• The individuals problems are such that a more
  rounded assessment should be undertaken.
• All or some of the domains of the Single
  Assessment Process are explored.
• May be started immediately once basic personal
  information has been collected - OR
• Contact assessment may have been carried out - OR
• Specialist assessment of a specific problem may
  have been undertaken first, with the overview
  assessment providing background later

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Who Undertakes Overview Assessment?

• Completed by a single professional from either
  Health or Social Services.
• The domains of clinical background and
  disease prevention do not require specific
  health tests to be undertaken assessing
  professional to check on past assessments.
• Staff training and development should be offered
  to ensure acceptable levels of professional
  competence.

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Specialist Assessments

• Purpose
• Offers a way of exploring specific problems in
  detail
• May be indicated by a Contact or Overview
  assessment.
• As a result of a Specialist assessment,
  professionals should be able to confirm the
  presence, extent, cause and likely development of
  a health condition or problem, and establish
  links to other conditions and problems.

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Who undertakes Specialist assessment?

• Specialist assessments, and associated scales,
  should be administered and interpreted by the
  most appropriate professional.
• The service users needs will determine how the
  assessment is structured, and who will be
  involved.
• Agencies should ensure that all assessors can
  readily access appropriate professionals to carry
  out specialist assessments.

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Comprehensive Assessment

• May be obvious at the outset that an older
  persons needs and circumstances are such that a
  Comprehensive Assessment involving in-depth
  assessment of all or most of the domains of the
  single assessment process should be commenced.
  Conducting an overview assessment could cause
  avoidable delay.
• OR on initial contact there could be less
  certainty, and an overview assessment may be
  carried out to explore areas of concern.

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Comprehensive Assessment (cont)

• When all domains of an Overview assessment have
  been surveyed, and Specialist assessments carried
  out in most or all of them, the result is also a
  Comprehensive assessment.
• Comprehensive assessments should be completed
  where the level of support likely to be offered
  is intensive or complex, including permanent
  admission to a care home, intermediate care
  services, or intensive packages of care at home.

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Older peoples contribution to assessment

• Agencies should encourage older people to
  contribute fully to their assessment.
• Professionals might advise older people of the
  seven key issues that should be covered.
• People can be advised to think about the problems
  issues they may wish to raise, and how this
  might be structured.

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Older peoples contribution to assessment (cont)

• People may complete customised forms or make
  written statements that can feed into the
  assessment process.
• Encourage the older person to provide relevant
  biographical information including problems they
  have faced in the past, key life events,
  relationships, motivations and beliefs.
• Ask if older people might need, or benefit from,
  advocates, interpreters or translators.

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Carers

• Explore the support and treatment people are
  already receiving.
• Where there is support from carers, include the
  nature of that support, the strength of the
  caring relationship, and whether the carer
  requires support and services, either to help
  them continue caring for the older person or in
  their own right.
• A separate carers assessment may be required.

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Evaluating Assessment Information

• Prognosis and risk assessment
• Prognosis of peoples conditions or the likely
  outcomes if help were not to be provided - link
  to FACS.
• Impact of problems and issues on peoples
  independence - link to FACS.
• The risks involved to the older person, their
  family and others close to them which risks
  cause serious concern and which may be
  acceptable.

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Evaluating Assessment Information (cont)

• FACS and Eligibility for services
• Autonomy and freedom to make choices
• Health and safety
• The ability to manage personal and daily routines
• Involvement in family and wider community life.