People and communities have the best possible outcomes because their needs are assessed. Their care, support and treatment reflects these needs and any protected equality characteristics. Services work in harmony, with people at the centre of their care. Leaders instil a culture of improvement, where understanding current outcomes and exploring best practice is part of everyday work.

Everyone is supported to see what works well and not so well based on indicators of quality. Continuous improvement is always guided by this insight.

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Assessing needs

• We always take a strengths-based approach to assessing needs that focuses on what people we support can do, not just what they can’t. Where people cannot do some things, we include this in our support plans too.
• We can evidence how we involve people in assessing their own health and care needs. Where needed, we provide accessible information that enables them to make an informed choice.
• Our care assessment process is holistic and looks at the whole person, including their emotional wellbeing, physical, spiritual needs etc. We use a range of assessment tools to support this process.
• We ensure our managers and staff team are effectively trained and competent to undertake care assessment and review, a process that always involves the person we support.
• Where any specialist support is needed to assess and review health and care needs (e.g., Trusted Assessor), we ensure this is promptly arranged and ongoing where required.
• We ensure all initial assessments are undertaken prior to an individual receiving care from our service or – where this is not practical - as soon as is possible after commencing the care package.
• Our managers and staff are effective in how they tailor communications (e.g., Accessible Information Standards) and check understanding about people’s health and care needs.
• We regularly monitor and review people’s care needs, involving them in these processes and discussing associated changes that may be needed.
• Our effective record management ensures that there is consistency across associated documentation, such as needs assessments, care plans, risk assessments etc.
• We can provide documentation covering our decision-making process and how we involved people in these processes. Where appropriate, our evidence includes decisions around mental capacity and safeguards.
• We regularly review the effectiveness of our needs assessments and monitoring and review processes as part of spot checks and quality assurance processes.
• Where we identify areas for improvement, we will update and test new approaches and involve external expertise if required.

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