Assessment & Care Planning
What do we mean by Assessment and Care Planning?
Cancer survivors often have ongoing needs following active treatment. Studies show that people living with cancer need greater access to health care services. 90% of cancer survivors have visited their GP and 45% visited a specialist doctor in the last 12 months compared to 68% and 15% of wider population. Studies show that their health and wellbeing profile is similar to people with other long term conditions including diabetes and arthritis.
Baseline studies show that currently only 25% of cancer patients are receiving a needs assessment and a care plan and there is no standard approach as to how these should be carried out.
Having a needs assessment during and at the end of treatment helps to identify these issues and a care plan can be developed in partnership with the cancer survivor. A care plan is ‘owned by’ and supports the cancer survivor after their treatment and covers areas such as;
- Planned surveillance and follow-up care
- The symptoms of a possible recurrence or consequences of treatment
- Signposting to support groups and local services
- Lifestyle improvements including activity and nutrition
- Psychological support
- Work and finance concerns
- Practical concerns
- How to re-access the healthcare system if necessary, including out of hours support.
Carers also play a vital role in supporting people with cancer and it is important that their needs for information, advice and support are addressed.
These areas are covered in detail in supporting pages and in the assessment and care planning report, available to download below.
- Assessment and Care Planning Tools and Competencies
- A Practical Guide for Holistic Needs Assessment
- Treatment Summary
- Cancer Care Review
- Health and Wellbeing Clinics
Testing of the assessment and care planning process took place during the summer of 2010 across 11 test sites and at 8 prototype sites in 2011 in collaboration with NHS Improvement. The work was evaluated and the results are summarised in the Assessment and Care Planning Annual report . Further testing of an assessment triplicate pad and the touch screen project is ongoing.
The assessment and care planning projects are sponsored by Ciaran Devane, Chief Executive, Macmillan Cancer Support and are managed by Noeline Young, Macmillan Cancer Support.
Last updated on January 9, 2012