A complete occupational therapy service

Hey Stacey Occupational Therapy offers a range of capacity assessments and intervention, including:

CaRE NEEDS Assessments

When you’ve been seriously injured, your funding scheme needs to understand how your injury affects your daily life so they can arrange the right supports for you. This is what a Care Needs Assessment is for.

What does the assessment look at?
A serious injury can affect many parts of life at once, not just the obvious physical things, but energy levels, thinking and memory, confidence, and the ability to manage everyday routines. The assessment takes all of this into account.

It typically covers:

• Personal care: Eating and drinking, bathing, dressing and toileting
• Getting around: Moving safely at home and in your community
• Domestic life: Cooking, cleaning, shopping, and managing the household
• Thinking and memory: Concentrating, planning ahead, remembering, and making decisions
• Communication: How you interact with others and manage information
• Supervision and safety: Whether you need someone present to keep you safe
• Social life and community: Staying connected and participating in activities that matter to you
• Impact on family and carers: What your support network is doing and if this is sustainable

What does the process look like?
Most assessments take place over one or two visits, usually at your home, where I can see how you actually manage in your own environment. The process is straightforward:

• A conversation about your life: I will ask about your daily routines, what a typical day looks like, what’s changed since your injury, and what you’d like to be able to do. Your family or carer is welcome to be involved
• Observation of everyday tasks: I may ask you to show me how you manage certain activities, like making a meal or getting dressed, so I can see what’s actually happening, not just what I think is happening
• Standardised assessments: Where relevant, I may use specific tools to assess physical and cognitive abilities
• Your home environment: I’ll take note of your physical environment, layout, access, hazards etc as this directly affects what you can and can’t do safely and independently
• A clear written report: After the assessment, I prepare a detailed report for your scheme. It sets out my findings, explains the reasoning behind the recommendations, and is written to meet the legislation and criteria your scheme requires

What can the report be used for?
A Care Needs Assessment report can support your scheme to:

• Determine or review your funding level and approved supports
• Identify what services, equipment, or home modifications you need
• Set a baseline to measure your progress over time
• Inform case management planning and goal setting
• Support applications, reviews, or disputes about your plan

Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapy is about helping you do the things that matter, whether that’s managing at home, getting back to work, or simply feeling more in control of your day. After a serious injury, that often means adapting how you do things, building new strategies, and making sure your environment and equipment are working for you.

I can develop a therapy plan with you, based on what’s important to you and where you want to get to. Progress is measured throughout, so there’s a clear record of what’s working and what your scheme is funding.

Thinking, memory, and managing daily life
Injuries that affect the brain can change the way you think, remember, plan, and manage energy. These impacts are often invisible to others but can make everyday life feel exhausting and unpredictable at times. Therapy in this area might include:

• Building routines and systems to manage memory and organisation
• Strategies for fatigue such as pacing, prioritising, and doing more without hitting a wall
• Managing sensory overload in busy or overwhelming environments
• Understanding your injury and its effects, for you and the people around you
• Getting back to activities in sustainable ways

Physical function and independence
For injuries with significant physical impacts, occupational therapy focuses on what you can do and how to extend that as far as possible. This might include:

• Strategies for managing pain and fatigue across the day
• Adapting how you do things so they’re safer, easier, or more sustainable
• Prescribing aids and equipment, from simple tools through to complex assistive technology
• Supporting a return to work, study, or community involvement