Learning from practice

The primary benefit of systematic early health needs assessment is that those children and families who have additional health needs, receive appropriate, timely and effective support. Using and electronic, rather than a paper-based system more easily creates an audit trail and baseline data for identifying gaps in service provision, and areas with health inequalities; planning services and monitoring improvements in health over time. This is an electronic health needs assessment similar to the Health and Your Family booklet .



It assists health visiting teams and midwives to identify a new family's additional needs early and refer them for support. As with the booklet, it promotes the family's full engagement in the decision making. Assessments are offered between 24 – 32 weeks of pregnancy, 8 – 12 months after the birth of the child and again at 2 – 2½ years. If any support needs are identified a review is offered 9 months after the initial health needs assessment.



Health visitors and midwives use laptops which have password security and encryption and the data is subject to Caldicott requirements and a data sharing agreement. Clients give written consent for sharing of anonymised data. A server is used to house the database, which is secure, the laptops are populated with the data by the user on a weekly basis and the data returned to the server at the next upload. Referral forms, such as the Framework for Assessment for Children and their Families, are available within the programme and validated tools such as The Recent Life Events scale are including within the system.



Penny Miller, Health Visitor/Researcher Start South Fenland 01354 697906

penny@surestart-cambs.co.uk



Source: Desk research for NHS Institute by Matrix research and consultancy