What is a Holistic Needs Assessment?
A Holistic Needs Assessment (HNA) ensures that people’s physical, practical, emotional, spiritual and social needs are met in a timely and appropriate way, and that resources are targeted to those who need them most. An HNA is a simple questionnaire that is completed by a person affected by cancer, with their CNS, Cancer Care Coordinator or Macmillan Support Worker. It allows them to highlight the most important issues to them at that time, and this can inform the development of a care and support plan. The questionnaire can be completed on paper or electronically.
Evidence has shown providing effective individual HNA and care and support planning can contribute to better identification of a person's concerns. It also enables early intervention and diagnosis of side effects or consequences of treatment. As such, everyone living with or beyond cancer should be offered an HNA and a care and support plan as part of Personalized Care, at key stages on their cancer pathway as part of Personalized Care.
Evidence also suggests that a person’s holistic needs are likely to change at key points in their cancer journey, like after diagnosis and at the end of treatment, or if something else affects their health or social needs. Having an HNA at these points helps to identify the issues that need to be discussed and can be used to continually inform their care and support plan. In Lincolnshire patients should be offered a HNA within 31 days of their diagnosis and then during, and at the end of their treatment.
The information gathered from an HNA can also be shared with the multidisciplinary team (MDT) and the person’s GP, to improve management and care. Any data collected can be used to influence service developments and the commissioning of future services.
If you are a United Lincolnshire Hospital patient and would like an HNA, please contact the Macmillan Information Centre on: 01522 573799
What is a Treatment Summary?
A Treatment Summary is a letter/ template produced by the specialist doctor or nurse within the hospital setting out-lining the end of a course of cancer treatment or management. The aim of this letter/template is to provide high quality communication between your hospital team and your GP. The letter/template should contain details of any treatment you have received, but also other useful information about alert symptoms that may require referral back to your specialist team, as well as describing possible consequences of treatment, any ongoing management plan as well as any required GP actions to help support you back home. Copies of the completed treatment summary will be sent to you and your GP.
In this video, you can see how a HNA works and how it helps people with cancer to live life as fully as they can.