An EHC Needs Assessment is carried out in order to consider whether a child or young person requires an education, health and care plan (EHCP). Health professionals are one of the key contributors to this assessment process. They will be asked to provide advice about a child/young person’s health needs and recommend health outcomes and support, and if an EHCP is agreed, this information will be used to draft the health sections of their plan.

In this article we look at what sort of information health professionals should provide to describe a child or young person's health needs.

Contextual information:

Statutory health advice should start by including any diagnoses made (and when) and other details about the child/young person's medical background, such as prescribed medication, previous treatments and any previous or ongoing involvement from other medical professionals or services.

Strengths:

EHC plans include a strong focus on the child/young person’s strengths, as well as their needs. Whilst not all EHCP templates require the inclusion of strengths in Section C, health advice should still identify some strengths, such as positives about the child/young person’s health or current medical support that is working well.

These should be genuine strengths that the child or young person has, rather than an absence of need. For example, whilst it can be useful to note elsewhere in the advice that ‘John has no motor skills difficulties’, this is not actually a strength.

Examples of health-related strengths:

• Matt wears his hearing aids consistently.
• Adele tolerates her feeding tube well.
• Mohamed is talented at adapted sports, such as wheelchair basketball.
• Hana is good at applying strategies for self-regulation.
• Nathan understands when he needs to seek support for managing his condition.
• Aya can manage her medication independently.

Needs and impacts:

The bulk of health advice will focus on describing the main difficulties/barriers associated with the child/young person’s health needs. Needs should be clearly and comprehensively described, with explanations of any technical terms and a focus on presenting needs rather than complex diagnostic information.

A common misunderstanding when completing statutory health advice forms is around the word ‘needs’, which can be interpreted as what help/support the child/young person needs to receive. However, remember that ‘needs’ actually refers to difficulties or barriers the child/young person faces.

Where a child/young person has a diagnosis, health professionals should clearly explain what this looks like for the child/young person and how it affects them e.g. related needs and challenges, rather than just stating the diagnosis. A diagnosis is not a need in and of itself; it is necessary to describe the needs and impacts associated with a diagnosis. For example, a diagnosis of ADHD may impact on ability to cope in the classroom.

Information should also include how other health needs (not just diagnoses) impact on different aspects of a child/young person’s life, including their academic progress, independence and life skills, and community inclusion. For example, motor and sensory processing needs may impact on the development of age-appropriate self-care skills.

Below are some examples of the difference between diagnoses and associated needs and impacts:

Want to learn more?

The above is an excerpt from our CPD accredited Health Input in EHC Plans online course, designed for health professionals involved in the EHCP assessment, development and/or review process.