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How Senectus links
with the Single Assessment Process
The National Service
Framework for Older People (2001) outlined a strategy
designed to ensure fair, high quality, integrated health
and social care services for older people. However to
improve services the needs of older people have to be
established and one way of achieving this is through
assessment.
Assessment is about
collecting information on a person's needs and
circumstances and making sense of that information in
order to identify eligible needs and decide what support
or treatment to provide (DoH 2001).
It is through proper
assessment of the range and complexities of older
people's needs and prompt provision of care that their
ability to function independently can be improved; the
need for emergency hospital admission can be reduced;
and the need for premature admission to residential care
settings decreased.
Despite the fact that
older people are in frequent contact with health and/or
social services, physical, social and psychological
problems can be missed or go unreported. Assessments are
often duplicated, and the best possible packages of care
may not be delivered because of the fragmentation of
information services, and the failure to share
information. The Single Assessment Process (SAP) was put
in place to address these problems.
The SAP provides an
opportunity to provide standardised assessment data that
can be utilised for measuring the quality and
performance of different care settings, and provide
aggregated data for policy planning. One of the
assessment tools that can be used for SAP is the MDS
(Minimum Data Set assessment system), and its computer
software enables patient/client individual needs to be
categorised and scored. The data can also be aggregated
to allow resource use in terms of staffing requirements.
Senectus supports The
Minimum Data Set assessment system. The MDS system
consists of two elements, firstly the assessment
component that enables the care provider to assess
multiple key domains of function, health, social support
and service use. Secondly particular MDS items identify
clients who could benefit from further evaluation of
specific problems and functional decline. These items
known as 'triggers' link the MDS to a series of problem
orientated Client Assessment Protocols (CAPs) or
Resident Assessment Protocols (RAPs).
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