The importance of Progress Notes

Within our clients Care Plans we have documents called ‘Progress Notes’ which are completed by the carers at each call. It is important to complete progress notes correctly in black in, capitals or lower case if you have neat hand writing and the time you arrived and left the visit.

All care companies have these documents within the client’s home or room as it is by law that everything which has been done at each call is documented down. This ensures the company that carers are working correctly and we can see if any concerns have been reported or not.

The purpose of progress notes is to provide a daily account of each client and their illness, and developments within their care for all those who visit that client. This enables all carers to communicate so they can detect whether the client’s health is getting worse, better or remaining the same.

Progress notes can and should be relatively brief, focusing on developments since the previous note, and recapping only the relevant, on-going, and active problems. Senior Carers collect progress notes for the clients within their area and report them back to the head office. As part of the Care Co-ordinators role they are responsible to audit the progress notes and check for any concerns or problems that haven’t been reported to the office and to also check that carers have visited the clients call at the correct time.

The importance of progress notes is to ensure that client’s health is top priority, for our carers to communicate between each visit and to be able to report back to certain days or a time for any reason.