Adult Social Care Glossary, v 0.6

Information which is able to be read or received and understood by the individual or group for which it is intended.

From 1 August 2016 onwards, all organisations that provide NHS care and/or publicly-funded adult social care are legally required to follow the Accessible Information Standard. The Standard sets out a specific, consistent approach to identifying, recording, flagging, sharing and meeting the information and communication support needs of patients, service users, carers and parents with a disability, impairment or sensory loss.

FIVE STEPS OF AIS

IDENTIFY: How does the service assess for disability related information or communication needs? How does the service find out if people have any of these needs? How does the service plan how it will meet those needs?

RECORD: How does the service record those identified needs clearly? What systems are in place as part of the assessment and care planning process?

FLAG: How does the service highlight or flag people’s information and communication needs in their records? This could be in paper or electronic records. The chosen method must make it possible for all staff to quickly and easily be aware of (and work to meet) those needs.

SHARE: Services sometimes need to share details of people’s information and communication needs with other health and social care services. This means that other services can also respond to the person's information and communication needs.

How does the service do this (when they have consent to do so)?

MEET: How does the service make sure it meets people’s needs? How does the service make sure that people receive information which they can access and understand? How does the service arrange communication support if people need it?

For example, patients and people using a service should:

- be able to contact (and be contacted by) services in accessible ways, such as via email, text message or Text Relay
- receive information and correspondence in formats they can read and understand. This could be, for example, in audio, braille, easy read or large print
- be supported by a communication professional at appointments if needed to support conversation. This could be a British Sign Language interpreter
get support from health and care staff and organisations to communicate. This could include help to lip-read or use a hearing aid

MONITORING AND INSPECTION

During inspections, we will look at these five steps by talking to staff and people using the service.

Wherever possible, our inspectors will review the assessment and care plan of at least one person using the service who is affected by AIS. These will be selected as part of our usual inspection evidence-gathering.

In addition to inspections, we will also ask you how you are meeting AIS through annual Provider Information Requests/Collections.

INSPECTION REPORTS

In adult social care reports, AIS findings will be covered under Responsive.

The link sets out the approach the CQC will take to the Accessible Information Standard in their new approach to assessment. This will apply to care providers and local authority assessments.