About Me - Cassie's story
This case study focuses on Cassie, a 69-year-old with learning disabilities who lives in her own self-contained flat with an ‘extra-care’ supported living service provided by Havencare.
Sharing information on how to communicate with Cassie using the About Me Standard enables hospital staff to understand her health procedures and provide care that meets her needs and requirements.
Multi Me is a secure online platform for individuals with disabilities and the circle of people that support them in their daily lives. They have achieved conformance with ‘About Me’, which shows their commitment to standards excellence and robust information sharing, resulting in better health and care outcomes for people.
On this page
The challenge
Cassie has liver failure and has been on the transplant list for many years without success. In early 2024, Cassie became seriously unwell and needed to stay in hospital for 4 months.
During this period, her 1-1 personal support from Havencare would attend the hospital for a few hours each day, but the remaining time, she was under the care of the hospital nursing staff. Especially when unwell, Cassie struggles to express her needs and wishes.
The solution - 'About Me'
The PRSB’s About Me Standard includes most important details that a person wants to share with professionals in health and social care. This information might include how best to communicate with the person, how to help them feel at ease or details about how they like to take their medication.
It is intended to be generic and apply to everyone, from those who have complex care and support needs to those who rarely require care and/or support.
Using ‘About Me’ information has been shown to achieve huge benefits for people including supporting them through hospital appointments or other care which might not have been possible or resulted in adverse outcomes without understanding key ways to work with the person.
The process
Sharing About Me information | Cassie’s support team shared the information from the ‘About Me’ section of her plan (recorded in her Multi Me Wiki) with the hospital staff.
Wikis are simple, accessible, and easy to build personal websites. They can be used to create multimedia person-centred plans that use pictures, words, video and sound to capture the voice, skills, aspirations and needs of the individual. |
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Improving care for Cassie | Due to the quality of the about me information in her support plan, specifically the “how to communicate with me” section, visual aids were used to support Cassie, alongside her Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA) to understand her health procedures.
The hospital staff were also given key information on how to use social stories with Cassie to help her understand important information and decisions. |
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The results | Sharing Cassie’s ‘About Me’ information, helped her feel much more settled in hospital, reduced her anxiety, and helped the hospital team engage with her positively with kindness and familiarity. Cassie returned home after hospital and is making the most of her time given her health situation. Havencare believes that sharing this information was key to Cassie’s recovery and her being well enough to be able to return home. |
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Resources
The About Me Standard
View the full standard and supporting documentation, examples and other resources.
Conformant partners
Find out which of our PRSB Partners have successfully achieved conformance against the About Me Standard.
Support services
Proactive support for our standards and ongoing maintenance and release management of published standards.