Care planning is essential. And its importance is due to person centred care also being deemed as vital within the care industry (and similar industries too).

What is a care plan?

Before we look deeper into care planning and its importance, let’s remind ourselves of what a care plan is. It is a written document which identifies an individuals needs, views and preferences. It provides vital information to provide care, support and treatment.

It will contain information such as:

• name, date of birth
• religion and beliefs
• food preferences, fluid and nutrition information
• communication and social inclusion
• strengths, abilities and goals
• among other areas

It’s an essential document which enables the individual to receive the appropriate care, support and treatment they require.

Why is care planning important?

Care plans enable care workers and support workers alike to provide appropriate care to the individual. Without a care plan, staff would not be able to provide person centred care tailored to meet their needs. In fact it is likely they would not be able to provide the care the individual requires, without one. A one size fits all approach is not suitable. People have varying needs, abilities, wants and wishes. They can also have preferences. Some people are tea drinkers, others coffee drinkers and some don’t like either.

They can also facilitate the individuals goals. For example, they may wish to learn to cook or make friends. This not only helps to provide independence but also provides a good quality of life. Without these conversations, goals would unlikely be facilitated nor met.

Individuals can require specific equipment or have medical requirements. Care planning is important in this aspect to ensure any medical need is met. They are also important as they can highlight any conditions the individual has, which require supportive strategies. It may further go into detail of how to respond when a service user is having a seizure or needs verbal de-escalation support.

Essentially, care plans are more than just a tick box exercise. They provide the individual a document to enable appropriate care and treatment to be provided. Alongside providing choices, independence and a higher quality of life.

How can we implement effective care planning?

Care planning requires specific information to provide the best possible care. It is important the process facilitates this. The care plan process can cause negative feelings for service users and their families. This can be due to previous experiences as it can be a very negative exercise. This can be because it requires significant information about the support needs of the individual, rather than their strengths.

Here are some questions to think about when care planning:

 

• is the process easy to understand?
• does the process prioritise the individual’s needs (e.g. around their care)?
  
• are the individuals family or carers involved in the process?
• does the care plan focus only on what the individual cannot do, instead of showing their needs and their abilities too?
• are other professionals involved (e.g. doctors, specialist nurses, social workers etc)?
• does it include lots of jargon or abbreviations which can cause miscommunication?
• is the care plan regularly reviewed and updated when support, treatments or health needs change?
• is the current care plan and care planning procedure working?