The standard aims to make a nursing assessment accessible at the point of care, should the persons move between places of care.

The Nursing Care Needs Standard aims to improve the quality and safety of care in key nurse-led areas, including care planning. It reflects best practice and standardises documentation across different nursing settings, to free nurses and give them more time to care. For example, it standardises information that a nurse in a care home or community setting can access and share in the same way as a mental health or hospital nurse, with a focus on the person’s overall wellbeing.

People tell us that nursing care documentation is an important source of information about their health and care needs, their strengths, and the goals they want to achieve. It describes their quality of life and how this can be improved given their health and care circumstances and underlying conditions. This standard will enable more personalised care provision and enable better self-care.

A standard that allows the exchange of information between IT systems will also enable sharing of standardised information between nurses and other health and social care professionals in the persons’ circle of care for continuity and more timely care delivery.

The standard is focused on eating and drinking, mobility, elimination (toileting and continence), personal hygiene and dressing, skin, and medication self-management.

• Hospital
• Community
• Nursing home

• Mandating which specific risk assessment tool should be used for an assessment.
• Nurse treatment plans used by Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS) and Advanced Nurse Practitioners (ANP) and in non-inpatient care settings.

• Midwifery
• Neonatal care
• Mental health nursing

(However, mental health settings may also need to assess functional needs – therefore, this standard should be used where relevant).