Assessment of Older People's Health and Social Care Needs and ...

Pathways to Care Old AgeScreening and Assessment inthe Community A GeneralPractitioner PerspectiveOr Sheelagh Prosser, General Practitioner, Bruckless, Co. Donegal-----------------------------------As a General Practitioner with a special interest in old age screening and assessment in thecommunity, I would like to bring both that perspective and a focus on an evidence-based approach toassessment to you today.Standardised Assessment of Elderly People.(STEP)In March of 2002, we saw the publication of the report of the STEP group which is a Europeanworking group for the Standardised Assessment of Elderly People in the community in Primary Carein Europe. One of the outcomes of the group's work is the recent report, Royal College of GeneralPractitioners, ace. Paper No. 82. It is an important report because it will add to our knowledge basefor models for the assessment of elderly people in primary care.--------At present, there is a focus on reactive assessments in Ireland. These occur:• when there is an actual or potential breakdown of independent living• on admission into a residential or other long-term care facility• on discharge from hospital• when there is a crisis in the community, whether medical or social.The most common example of reactive assessment we hear about is the comprehensive geriatricassessment, often conducted by a multi-disciplinary team in a hospital Geriatric Department._f.---------------------------The great contribution of the STEP group was to try and bring the concept of a proactive assessmentto our understanding of what we should do in the community. The overall aim of the group was toAssessment of Older People's Health and Social Care Needs and Preferences