User Persona – Community Support Worker
Bio
‘I’m a community support worker specialising in supporting adults with learning disabilities and autism. I’ve been working in social care for about five years. A typical day involves visiting clients at home or in community settings, I conduct assessments, review cases, and make sure my clients receive the right support and services. My role can be complex, especially when clients are misdiagnosed, which affects the type of support they need. Most days before each client visit, I review their medical history and health information on the Shared Care Record, so I’m prepared. I also use it to make referrals.’
Quotes
“It saved us… you know, we need to work on someone who has got a genuine LD or autism, but it’s also supported him to get the right support as well.”
“Every time I have to log in, I need to authorise it again, which takes time.
It doesn’t remember you… it’s a bit of
a hassle.“
“A lady in her mid-40s… she kept getting invited to a smear test, but she wasn’t going. I could see that on the ShCR, so I actually reached out to the GP, saying, ‘Has she actually been for her smears?’ and she was just not going, and we’re now following that up.”
“I had to refer back to the GP because, on one person, the ShCR wasn’t correct so now I ask for a patient summary from the GP anyway.”
Goal and motivations
My goal is to ensure my clients receive the right support and services, and feel frustrated with health professionals who don’t fully understand their needs. I take pride in progressing cases and making improvements in my clients’ lives. Other goals, motivations and needs include:
- Quickly differentiating between learning disabilities and learning difficulties
- Accessing medical history and medication to help complete assessments and make decisions
- Confirming referral information like recent hospital appointments or missed medical screenings
- Reducing the need for outreach to GPs
- Improving efficiency and timeliness
Challenges
The main challenge I have is the confusion within healthcare professionals between learning difficulties and learning disabilities. Other challenges include:
- Instances where the information in the record was not fully accurate compared to the GP’s records
- Incorrect medical codes in the Shared Care Record, where certain conditions were marked as active but should have been listed as inactive
- The URL cannot be saved as a favourite, which means I copy and paste it each time
- I have to log in and authorise every time I accesses the record, which is time-consuming
- The sidebar settings reset each time, so I have to minimise it manually
- Accessing the record is not possible when out in the field without an internet connection
Opportunities
- Learning disability: Having more detailed information about learning disability services, would help me make quicker and more informed decisions about my clients’ care
- Save the URL as a favourite: It would save time rather than me copy and pasting each time
- Quicker login process: It would be great if my login details saved to made the login process quicker
- Customisable interface: It would be helpful if the sidebar settings stayed minimised when I log in, rather than having to adjust it every time
- Offline access: Being able to use the ShCR offline would be a huge help when I’m out in the field
- Improved accuracy: I’d like the information in the ShCR to always match what’s on the GP records I’ve come across a few discrepancies, and it would be good to fully rely on the ShCR data