The OACC Assessment Questionnaire is sent out to all appropriate patients at telephone triage who are assessed as needing to be seen within 1–2 Weeks. The Questionnaire looks at IPOS as part of OACC.

This process allows for the Patients to have more time to review their symptoms and to think about their main problems of concern over the last week, along with any practical problems resulting from their illness, prior to their Palliative Care Nurse Specialist visiting them in their own home for their first holistic assessment.

By enabling an opportunity for the Patients to complete the Questionnaire themselves, it reduces reliance on Healthcare Professional Staff assisting them, and gives more autonomy/direction about key issues for them. It can also be used as a channel for Patients and Families to have some open conversation prior to their first visit/assessment, and to give insight into areas we will cover, which are different to a District Nursing assessment.

This review aimed to establish the benefit of sending out the Questionnaire. Also to examine if the action of recording data within the process was robust, and to identify any areas that could be improved.

A random sample of 34 patients was selected for retrospective review of activity from sending out the Questionnaire to examination whether this was completed by the patient or helped by the nurse to complete on the first visit, and scrutiny of the data recorded on Crosscare thereafter.

Overall, it was found that there was benefit of sending out the OACC Questionnaires with 50% of Patients completing this prior their PCNS visit. However, following analysis of the data recorded, we established that we needed to revisit training, particularly for PCNSs for navigating the IPOS windows and recording data therein.