Assessment and care packages
Under the National Health Services (NHS) and Community Care Act 1990, services users are permitted to have their needs considered. Needs are assessed by social workers and other professional staff who assess what service an individual should have purchased for them.
Assessment results in are written document that outlines how the needs of an individual are to be met which is called a care plan. National minimum values involve that service users’ needs are considered and a care plan is produced before an individual obtains a service. All service users should have a care plan; for example, Standard 3 in the National Minimum Standards for Care Homes for Older People requires that a ‘needs assessment’ is carried out if people come into care without going through the ‘care planning system’
National Minimum Standards require that people have an individual plan for their care, which may be drawn up by providers of care. This individual plan will be supported on an assessment of an individual’s needs and it might help out staff to calculate the effectiveness of care. Standard 7 (Care Homes for Older People) states that homes must provide: ‘A service user plan of care generated from a comprehensive assessment [which] is drawn up with each service user and provides the basis for the care to be delivered.’ So service user needs are documented and this results in a written service user plan which explains many of the most important needs which explains many of the most important needs which care aims to provide for.
Many people have complex needs that result in a need for multidisciplinary care which is care that is provided by a range of different agencies and professional carers (Examples are social work, social care, nursing, psychiatry, occupational therapy, speech therapy and medicine). For example, an older person in the community might be unable to do housework or their own shopping, may need medical attention and assistance for a leg ulcer and might also have social needs because they are feeling rather lonely. This individual may receive work-related therapy to help with day by day living activities, home care to assist with shopping, nursing care to assist with dressing the ulcer and voluntary support to provide conversation to meet social needs.
Care needs at different life stages
Infancy
Physical and intellectual needs
Newly born babies are dependent on parents or carers to keep them safe, make sure they are fed, bathed and warm. Infants also depend on parents and carers to make available to speak to and give them encouragement in order to persuade intellectual development. Intellectual stimulation will place the basis for the development of a child’s self-image.
Social and emotional needs
Infants need to make safe and steady relations with their carers throughout the first year of life. Also making devoted attachment, this procedure is called bonding. If there is a relationship between the carer and the child, this may end to letdown to bond or make a safe attachment in future relationships. Having a loving bond with parents or carer in infancy may be crucial in order to allow the expansion of self-esteem.
Childhood
Physical and Intellectual needs
As children grow up they improve a series of skills like their body skills (Example: Running and swimming), their charisma, social, creativity, and logic skills. As children new skills, children enjoy doing activities by themselves they become more independent. Children will need useful chances to learn and develop. A child’s personality will begin to expand from communication with other people throughout this stage of his/her life.
Social and emotional needs
Children are still dependent on adults to provide a steady, loving habitat for them and even though children may discover along with research, carers often need to direct and control what they do. Grown-up carers will need to supply for the young one’s physical needs also form physically and emotionally secure surroundings for them. All through primary socialisation, children should sense they fit in to a family or group, and they will have a need to feel loved and included in relations throughout this stage.
Adolescence
Physical and intellectual needs
Young people increase a growing level of ability and knowledge as they develop towards adulthood. Care needs will consist of good educational opportunities to expand sensible and intellectual abilities.
Social and emotional needs
They require belonging to a family or care group may still be significant; adolescents will be gradually more apprehensive to blend in with groups of their own age. Adolescents frequently duplicate each other’s technique of garments and appearance. Adolescent will be capable of making independent choices regarding physical needs also deciding their own acquaintance groups and lifestyle. Mutually self-image and self esteem are powerfully influenced by social and learning experiences at this period.
Adults
Physical and intellectual needs
Many adults obtain practical help and support because they cannot survive entirely independent lives. Adults with knowledge difficulties may maintain to want support in order to make suitable conclusions. Adult with physical disabilities may require a variety of physical and practical care, such as supporting with mobility, cooking and dressing.
Social and emotional needs
Service users will also require feeling secure, incorporated and valued. The worth of an adult person’s personality and self-worth will be influenced by the way other citizens treat them.
Older adults
Physical and intellectual needs
Numerous elder service users require help with physical care such as getting bathed and dressed.
Social and emotional needs
Older adults’ service users might be at jeopardy of not being treated with dignity and respect. A quantity of older adults may have particular wants for encouraging stimulation and relations. An individual’s appearances and self-worth will be influenced by the value of the care that they are given.
The final stages of life
Physical needs
When people are dying, they will frequently contain difficult physical needs for comfort, for instance pain relief, keeping the mouth moist, and so on.
Social and emotional needs
People in the ultimate periods of life might be nervous, and will be in need of emotional support. They will normally want to see friends and relatives, because the need to belong and fit in is very vital. People from time to time need to make sense of their lives and they may benefit from psychotherapy to allow them to manage. The wants to feel that life has had a value may represent a self-esteem need for many people.
