SAP Implementation Manual
	Programme	NPFIT	DOCUMENT NUMBER
	Sub-Prog/Project	Comms & Messaging	National Prog	Org	Prog/Proj	Doc Type	Seq
	Prog. Director	Tim Jones	NPFIT	FNT	TO	DPN	0122.01
	Sub-Prog/Proj Mgr	Margaret Baldock
	Author	Core Technical Team	Version No.		1.1
	NPO/PSO Contact	Sarah King	Status		Issued

 

 

The Single Assessment Process (SAP)

 

The Single Assessment Process (SAP) is one of providing appropriate, effective and timely responses to the health and social care of elderly people. In pursuit of these aims, the single assessment process strives to ensure that the scale and depth of the process is in proportion to older people’s needs; agencies do not duplicate each other’s assessments and professionals contribute to assessments in the most effective way.

 

To support these objectives the NHS Care Record Service has to support the business process of an initial high-level ‘contact’ assessment, broadening out to an ‘overview’ assessment or assessments where multiple needs have been identified and a ‘drilling-down’ into these specific areas is required.

 

The SAP process can therefore be one of multiple assessments, each serving a specific purpose and building on those already undertaken. The assessments are typically performed during separate encounters with a health or social care professional and where the outcomes of each are shared between all involved. The process also supports the role of a care coordinator whose responsibility it is to manage the process and the review the progress at appropriate intervals.

 

This pattern of care is supported by a number of ‘service user and care professional’ or ‘care professional and care professional’ interactions in what could be broadly termed a shared care working environment. The messages to support these interactions are described in the SAP Business Communications Specification (W5). However, a model comprising a series of encounters with care professionals followed by appropriate referrals and the sharing of clinical and social information closely aligns with that modelled in the Provision of Care message development domain but needs to be extended to included interactions between all health and social care professionals, not just Primary to Secondary Care.

 

The business communication requirements have therefore been remodelled around the Provision of Care ‘care event’ concept to support the actual face-to-face SAP assessment recording and the ‘transfer request’ to request that a SAP assessment be undertaken. These messages are described in the Communication Requirements for Provision of Care (W5) specification while the SAP specific messages have been withdrawn.

 

A PDS update message is also required to capture demographic changes recorded in the SAP ‘contact’ assessment, as well as a PSIS Query message to review previous SAP assessment summary information on PSIS.

 

The changes required to use Provision of Care, PDS and PSIS Query  messages are now documented in the updated and hyperlinked SAP Business Communications Specification (W5) above.

 

SAP Assessment Transmission message

 

The following table shows those elements of the Provision of Care ‘Care Event’ message that are required to support the SAP Assessment Transmission [to PSIS] requirement.

 

Data Sets for Provision of Care	PoC Care Event report	Required for SAP Assessment Transmission
Sender details	ü	ü
Recipient details including “copied to”	ü	=’PSIS’
Service user Demographics	ü	= NHS Number
Service User Legal Status	ü
Service User Personal Preferences	ü
Referral/transfer Requirement
Transport
Discharge
Care Event Information	ü
Health and social issue	ü	ü
Diagnosis	ü
Procedures	ü	ü
Findings	ü
Outcomes	ü
Care plan	ü
Planned procedures/care events	ü	ü
Goal	ü
Family History	ü
Allergy	ü
Alert	ü
Risk	ü
Social History / Circumstances	ü
Functioning and Well-being	ü
Medication Record	ü
Response to Transfer Request
Cancellation of Transfer Request
Response to Cancellation of Transfer Request

 

 

The Procedure dataset is used to record the assessment type, who completed it and when. Specifically, the ‘procedure qualifier’ data item will support the type of assessment, either ‘Contact’ or ‘Overview’, and in the case of the latter, there will be one or more values indicating each of  the assessment domains recorded.

 

The ‘Procedure status’ indicates the completeness or otherwise of the Contact or Overview Assessment; this is more relevant to the latter where the assessment process can be staged.

 

The outcome of the procedure will be one or more related ‘health & social care issues’ reflecting the needs of the patient. These are the needs that still need to be addressed and require some intervention. If all the needs ‘are met’ when completing an Overview Assessment domain category then they are not expected to be recorded.

 

For each ‘health and social care issue’ there may be one or more future ‘planned procedures/care events’ required to address the service user’s needs. However, this record is not mandatory in case no decision is made at the time of the assessment. This dataset also supports the recording of the services user’s view of each problem.

 

 

Change History

In Version	Author	Date	Amendment Details
1.0	Core Technical Team	10/05/2004	First Issue
1.1	Core Technical Team	25/06/2004	Revised documentation to add clarification of use of POC message