subject: Moderate exercise makes a Difference in Ageing Process and Care [print this page] Moderate exercise makes a Difference in Ageing Process and Care
The overall objective of the needs assessment is to obtain a picture of the older people's needs that balances their requests for services with an objective analysis of their needs in the light of limited public funding and spending decisions. This process involves ethical decisions, drawing on concepts such as equity, integrity, and autonomy. The needs assessment is intended to support family members or social workers in planning care for service users and to ensure that service developments are matched to the greatest needs as possible and to priorities between different needs (NHS and Community Care Act 1990; Health and Social Care 2001).
Simple Needs Assessment
A simple needs assessment may be performed to suggest a care plan delivery for people with few needs where only a few service packages will be considered. In some cases, this simple approach is adequate (Kendall et al 2002; DH 2002). For example, when only a few services are considered, such as shopping, cooking or transport services, a simple needs assessment will enable service providers to find out whether the client is satisfied with the quality, and to detect whether a rearrangement is necessary. It can also enable management to make sure their services are producing the desired results. This assessment can also enable screening into more complex care.
Comprehensive Needs Assessment
Where clients have critical and substantial needs, professionals and informal carers are presented with more challenges. Here the needs assessment provides a structure for collecting the information from all parties involved, where this "global" information is used for all as a basis for visualising the needs for integration of services and shared responsibilities. The more comprehensive needs assessment is carried out to establish care plans, service packages and needs for integrated care for persons with complex needs. This would enhance choice and control, quality of care provision and care planning process to evaluate outcomes, such as resource consumption and caregiver stress ( Phillip, Ray and Ogg 2003; Lowe 2003; King's Fund 2006).
The purpose of this type of needs assessment is to obtain a view of the client's needs that is fuller than that of the eligibility assessment. The reason for this is that a broader assessment might highlight new needs that have not been dealt with earlier. At first glimpse, this may lead to higher resource consumption, but, according to Payne (2000) and Lloyd (2002), identifying and handling needs earlier on improves the quality of care and quality of life. It also enables social workers to priorities their activities better. A needs assessment at this level provides a reliable summary description of the area or agency workload to request and allocate resources more appropriately. Social workers can use this information to help intertwine the services that are provided by formal and family caregivers in the care of the older person. This information also enables care provider agencies to meet their legal requirements to provide social services with information about their work (Challis and Hughes 2002; Phillip, Ray and Ogg 2000 & 2003).
Assessment Outcomes
However, needs assessment would not resolve all issues. It may even give rise to new questions such as: How does one deal with a situation where there is a conflict between client needs and client demands and preferences? How should one link present service activities to the needs assessment? How can one include risk management to the assessment process? To deal with a discrepancy between client needs and preferences, it is important to involve the client and their relatives in the care planning process. This situation should also be dealt within team discussions to ensure a true balance between the key stakeholders. With detailed information of the client's needs, we can more easily prioritise and remodel different services, if we consider them based on eligible criteria matrix (Postle 2002; Carey 2003). Furthermore, if the assessment is carried out comprehensively, this increases the likelihood of discovering risk areas and preventing risks such as violence or abuse between spouses, and environmental risks such as lack of heating. Thus, good assessment has the potential to yield holistic information that could be used to minimise social care needs plummeting to critical and substantial needs in the long term. It could also reduce costs of care giving (Hardiker and Barker 1999; Lloyd 2002; Phillip, Ray and Ogg 2003).
