Nursing Care Plans
What is a nursing care plan?
Nursing Care Plans are documents that set out a person’s needs when they require a more complex level of support and care. It contains information about how the person’s needs will be met, and that person-centred care is delivered at all times. This ensures that the person’s wider healthcare team can all work collaboratively, whether that’s carers, district nurses, or GPs.
Having a nursing care plan in place means that you will always be at the heart of your own care. At Helping Hands, we have a dedicated nursing team that covers the whole of England and Wales, meaning that wherever you live you have access to personalised nurse-led care. We believe that you should be able to direct your own care and decide how you wish to live, regardless of the complexity of your condition. We get to know you and the condition you’re living with so that we can use our decades of expertise to provide the best care for you in the home you love.
What types of nursing care plans are there?
Standard care plans
Standardised care plans are ‘guides’ that support carers, care managers, and nursing staff to make sure the care customers receive is consistent and relevant to their condition. These guides make sure that a minimum criteria of care is delivered and save planning time in situations where the care delivered is repeated for everyone, such as on a nursing unit or in a care home. Standard care plans are a starting point for designing a personalised care plan however they would not be used in a situation where person-centred, individualised care is standard, such as care in your own home from Helping Hands.
Individual care plans
Individualised nursing care plans are devised from a standardised beginning; however they are then built upon to ensure that everything contained is tailored to the individual’s needs. By approaching the care plans with a holistic approach in mind, the customer’s emotional, physical, and spiritual needs are kept at the centre of their care experience, meaning increased satisfaction and a feeling that their interests are being valued. An individualised plan will also take into account the customer’s short and long-term goals and give a clearer idea to healthcare providers of how the care plan is meeting the customer’s needs.
Tips on how to make an individual care plan
While there are different types of nursing care plans being used, by far the most person-centred one is an individualised plan. Knowing how to make a care plan is something that all nursing staff will be able to do, including our Helping Hands nursing team, and if it’s assessed that you need a higher level of support our clinical carers will ensure your routine is always followed.
Assess the patient
By assessing the customer comprehensively, their previous health can be measured against their current condition and their future healthcare goals. Involving the customer in their own health planning is the best way to ensure person-centred care, which is what we always deliver at Helping Hands.
Client involvement
Involving the customer at every stage of their care planning and delivery is key to person-centred care. Our nursing team work closely with our clinical carers to ensure that the care plans in our customers’ homes reflect exactly their wishes, preferences, and goals, as well as a flexible plan that changes as your needs do.
Track and evaluate
Tracking progress is essential in any healthcare setting, however when you’re receiving support in your own home it’s vital that your nursing care plan is constantly checked against your goals and wishes, so it's flexible enough to change as your needs do.
What is it important to have a nursing care plan?
Hopefully the question ‘what is a nursing care plan’ will have been answered by now, however the importance of the plan may not immediately be obvious. Because a care plan is a record of actions that should be taken to ensure that person-centred care is carried out, as well as healthcare goals worked towards, it’s vital that it is to the person’s (and where appropriate, their relatives’) agreement. It will also be regularly reviewed to ensure that the care being delivered is still appropriate.
How to make a care plan
Patient assessment
When you first get in touch with Helping Hands we will come and do a detailed assessment with you to understand how best we can support your needs, however you may have already had an assessment carried out by other healthcare professionals in other settings.
Diagnose
While Helping Hands will not diagnose you with a condition, our carers will be on the lookout for changes that may suggest you need reassessing. This could be a change for the better or a deterioration of your current condition.
Prioritise
It’s important to prioritise which of the person’s health issues needs addressing first, and any personalised care plan will ensure that happens. Solutions will be ranked in order of high, medium, and low priority, depending on your condition.
Use SMART goals
The goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-oriented. This ensures that the goals are able to be tracked and progress measured throughout the care planning process.
Communicate
Communication is vital throughout the entire care planning process. Appropriate methods of communication should be used for people who are non-verbal or don’t communicate in traditional ways, and this should always be detailed in the care plan.
Intervention planning
Your nursing care plan will contain interventions for helping you to improve or maintain your physical and mental wellbeing. Interventions can be a mixture of what the healthcare team proposes to do and also what the person can do on their part.
Implementation
Once all the steps are completed, the nursing care plan can become part of the person’s permanent record which should be reviewed regularly to ensure it is still relevant to their changing needs.
Review
It’s vital that all care plans are regularly reviewed, to check that what was assessed hasn’t changed, and the goals that were set are still current and achievable. Reviewing is essential to determine whether treatment should continue, change, or cease.
How Helping Hands can help
If you’re still unsure about the process of how to make a care plan, talking to Helping Hands will ensure you understand exactly what steps are involved and why we insist it’s done correctly. Having a care plan in place means that your needs are always regularly assessed, and your goals mapped to achievable criteria, which will help to ensure you always receive a high consistency of care from us. We can offer support on both a visiting and live-in care basis, meaning that we can adapt how we deliver your care to fit what has been devised in your care plan. Continuity of care is essential, and we also place a very high value on demonstrating that all of our care is safe and well-led in every respect.
Fully regulated by the CQC / CIW
All of our care services are fully regulated by the Care Quality Commission and the Care Inspectorate Wales, which demonstrates that we place the highest importance on the transparency of our care packages and the care plans that accompany them. Many companies offer care at home but its important to check that the company you’re approaching is fully regulated and have a demonstrable history and independent reviews. Because we’ve been established since 1989, we have thousands of satisfied customers and family members who tell us time and again what a difference we made to the lives of their loved ones. We have a policy of transparency at Helping Hands and put our customers at the centre of their care planning process, encouraging them to take a proactive role in their own wellbeing.
