Recording employment outcomes

[mikeedwards]

Oxleas Trust will be recording employment outcomes through Rio, the clinical records system, by noting changes between four types of employment status: retired, unemployed, working under 16 hours per week for at least minimum wage, and working over 16 hours per week for at least minimum wage. This has not yet been implemented in Bromley but will soon.
I'd be interested in whether other agencies will be willing to record employment outcomes in the same categories, to make recording and exchange of info easier.

The detailed instructions for receording the info are as follows:

Employment status must be recorded for all clients / carers on Registration. However, this can be recorded after the client has been registered.

• Click the Client Record icon on the toolbar.
• Click Registration Details on the Client Record menu.
• The Demographics (Search) page is displayed.
• Search for the client/patient as described in Searching for a Client/Patient.
• Click the Search for client icon:
• Click on the relevant Client details in the Results list.
• The Demographics page is displayed.
• Type the Employment Status code in the Occupation field.
Use the following codes:
P1 Paid employment – 16 hours or more
P2 Paid employment – less than 16 hours
U1 Unemployed (no paid employment including voluntary work)
R1 Retired (classified by the client)
Please add X after the code if the client has found employment whilst under the care of Oxleas. i.e if the client finds work of 16 hours or more you will type P1X. Codes are to be used to ensure this data is reportable.
• Click Save.

Subsequent changes can be recorded after the first status is recorded. Details of employment status can be added in a text form (ie not using standardised codes) in the same Rio field.

[kimminter]

This is a good start and will enable Oxleas to monitor the employment progress of some clients, however it doesn't include training and will only capture some outcomes. Also, we will still need to keep a separate database with the addtional information which we currently record. Who will be responsible for adding/updating this information on RIO? If a client is referred to another service who will track the progress of the client ?
and who will acknowledge that a client who enters secondary services and is employed, may have job retention issues and take the necessary action to facilitate this?
Any other thoughts on this?

[mikeedwards]

A couple of comments on Kim's comments and an update on the previous posting:
1. Yes, it would be good to have a standardised way of recording education outcomes on Rio, and for recording the details of the employment record. I my previous posting, I suggested entering such details in the same field. Unfortunately, once I tried to enter more info in someone's 'Occupation' field, it quickly filled up the field, so that is not an option!
2. There is another field in Rio specifically for employment, and this is under Core Assessment Part 2 - Ongoing, Personal & Social Information, Education, Work and Leisure. This seems able to take any amount of info. So, how about we use this field to report details of the changes (employer, hours, wage, etc.) that the codes represent in the 'Occupation' Field?
Then it will all be in one place and accessible to everyone to update. It looks like this:
Px2: June 06, Bromley MIND, cleaner, 4 hours pw, £5.53 ph
Px2: March 08, House of Commons Facilities Dept.. 8 hours pw, £8.50 ph
3. On the issue of who can update the info on Rio, I'd suggest it could be anyone in Oxleas with access to Rio.
4. On the issue of who is responsible for responding to the job retention needs of service users, I'd say it is the first person who is aware of the need!

[timsowter]

Hello

A couple of thoughts.

The Primary Care Mental Health Team is getting Primary Care Rio in July which is different from Mental Health Rio so I don't think it records these outcomes in the same way.

Secondly, I like the simplicity of this because the more complex you make it and the more data you try to collect the less likely people are to do it and therefore the less accurate it becomes. I did wonder whether certain very important outcomes should be included such as carer or full time parent as they are not represented in the other catagories

Tim

[irenebenefits]

There does not seem to be a category for voluntary work. For some people this is a valuable step towards paid employment and wonder if it could be recorded?

Irene Cotterell

[mikeedwards]

In response to Tim's & Irene's points:
How about recording details of voluntary work and unpaid carer work in the same place as the detailed paid employment under Core Assessment Part 2 - Ongoing, Personal & Social Information, Education, Work and Leisure? It could use a code of V instead of P, then have the same info, but with £0.00 as the wage.
For example:
Vx: June 06, Age Concern, retail assistant, 4 hours pw, £0.00 ph
Then if they lose the voluntary job, record:
Ux: May 08, End of Age Concern, retail assistant, 4 hours pw, £0.00 ph