Essay: Meeting the health needs of service users in the home

In health and social care setting, helping people to stay healthy, active and independent for as long as possible is another challenge. It really needs a collaborative working in partnership to ensure that service users’ are staying healthy, active and independent. The National Service Framework (NSF) through the department of Health was created to bring faster and more integrated care for older people (Department of Health, n.d.). There are various ways we need to meet the needs of the older people which includes meeting the agreed therapeutic/development activities, regular health checks, administering the prescribed medication/treatment and promoting and supporting healthy lifestyle choice. The National Service Framework contains eight standards relating to older people’s services covering the full range of care for older people need. Services treat older people as individuals, promoting their quality of life, independence, dignity and their right to make choices about their own care.
Standard 2 Person-Centred Care National Health Service and social care services treat older people as individuals and enable them to make choices about their own care. This is achieved through the single assessment process, integrated commissioning arrangements and integrated provision of services including community equipment and continence services.
Standard 3 Intermediate Care Older people will have access to a new range of intermediate care services at home or in designated care settings, to promote their independence by providing enhanced service from the National Health Service and councils to prevent unnecessary hospital admission and effective rehabilitation services to enable early discharge from hospital to prevent premature or unnecessary admission to long-term residential care.
Standard 8 The Promotion of Health and active life in older age The health and well-being of older people is promoted through a coordinated programme of action led by the National Health Service with support from councils
(Department of Health, n.d.)
Meeting the health needs of service users in the home requires me to have a better understanding on a wide range of methods and interventions with a systematic approach in the promotion of healthy lifestyle with our service users. Therapeutic/development activities are activities that have value and that service users can benefit as an individual which include reminiscence therapy, anxiety and relaxation management, and activities to promote self awareness and self esteem, remedial games, social skills training, communication groups which are helpful and relevant to service users. With this types of activity good communication skills and good understanding of the method is highly recommended. In doing so as part of my job role, I need to ensure that proper planning and assessment should be in place to make sure that it is suitable for the service users. To note that not all service user’s has the same capability. In order for me to do this, I need to ensure that I coordinate with relevant health care professionals to ensure that I am carrying out the activity properly. An example to which is physiotherapist, for us to be able to know until when are we going to deliver the activities which is applicable to our service users’ who are bed bound and people who remains in their chairs (with mobility difficulties), expert with learning disabilities, so that we can provide appropriate development and therapeutic activities. Seek guidance and support with service users that has communication difficulties and language needs and as well I need to communicate with the key people who can make difference to our service users’ health and well-being such as families, friends, carers or advocates. With the designed activities I need to encourage them to participate in the activities and explaining to them the benefit that they can get out of the activities. In carrying out the activities, I need to ensure that service users are safe from harm and danger by ensuring that all the equipments and materials are safe to use. I need to make sure as well that every activities that our service users’ are into it should be documented and recorded and must be put into their care plans. And lastly, if there are some modification or changes regarding the activities, it should be reviewed and ensure that proper re-assessment is in place.
Regular health checks with our service users’ should be provided and accessible as part of their care package. This is very important for every service users to ensure that they are healthy and if not intervention can be made. Regular health checks in our home include regular appointment with their General Practitioners, physiotherapist, neurologist, speech and language therapists to name some. They are also given the opportunity to attend the annual health routine check to ensure that they are healthy. In the nursing home setting like my home the medication administration to service users is one the job role for a qualified staff. All qualified staff needs to be well trained when it comes to the administration of medication to ensure that it is being administered properly. Some of the service users are independent and it needs just a minimal support to be able to take the tablet. This is another activity for the service users. However, the service users still got the choice regarding their medication if they want to have it or not as long as qualified staff encourages them and explaining to them the benefits of the tablet. Promoting healthy lifestyle choices is being observed in the home. The service users are given the opportunity to choose and select which options are suitable for them. An example of which is Mrs. DR one of our service user who still got a good memory. Technology is widely use in the home which includes, mobile phones, telephone and gadgets such as tablet/laptop. Mrs. DR has her phone in her bedroom as per her choice, this enables her to contact her friends and relatives outside the home. She is fun of using laptop wherein she can play her games (word games, drawings) and some other games which stimulates her mind. Another thing is the so-called assistive technology, equipments that are used to support independent living. There are quite a few service users who has bed sensors, floor sensors, chair sensors which indicates if the service users’ moving or not in their bedrooms to ensure their safety. Lastly, call bells are visible in each service users’ bedrooms to ensure that all their needs are attended to. All the above activities are vital in the aim to improve and maintain service users’ physical health and social connections which I believe can contribute to a healthy balanced lifestyle.