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Note: These use cases are a first draft, and in some cases are still under initial development. Whilst based on countless conversations with professionals and members of the public, they haven't yet been validated. Comments on the use cases are particularly welcome.
Use case:
Housing management - general
There is a great deal of data that could help social landlords to meet their duty of care towards their tenants. Inevitably, most of this is held by other services and isn't available to the landlord when needed.
As
a tenant in social housing with care and support needs or long-term health conditions
I need
my landlord to be aware of basic information about my needs
so that
they can make whatever reasonable adjustments are possible to meet my needs, without me having to contact them repeatedly to explain what I need trhem to do
As
a Registered Social Landlord (RSL)
I need
to be aware of basic information about my tenants' needs
so that
I can make reasonable adjustments, complete PEEPs, or take whatever other action is necessary to ensure they can live safely and independently in their home.
Priority information
Address
A unique lifelong identifier for any addressable location, which remains consistent throughout the property’s lifecycle from planning application to demolition. A parent/child structure allows for a “parent” UPRN for an overall building and separate “child” UPRNs for units in that building – flats, office units etc. Every UPRN is classified according to a detailed classification scheme, which distinguishes (for example) residential property from commercial property and sheltered accommodation from care/nursing homes.
The UPRN is a priority dataset for almost every use case, as it's the one piece of information that (in theory) can remain consistent across any record held by any organisation.
The UPRN is included in the MODS and ASC-CoRe data standards, and will be included in release 3 of the PRSB Core Information Standard.
Home environment
Many of the other headings refer to elements of risk, but this data item should cover flags like "Visit in pairs" which may be held by planning enforcement, community safety etc.
In general, property-specific hazards and risks are poorly communicated between services. One approach might be to have a hazard/risk flag, with contact details of the person/team/service who holds details, so anyone needing to visit the property can be given whatever detail they legitimately need and are entitled to.
This might be a high priority data item for the "digital firebox", as the details about the risk could be kept secure but immediately available in casses of legitimate need.
Useful information
Long term health conditions and disabilities
Long-term disabilities may be held as part of a social care record, a Reasonable Adjustments record, or perhaps inferred from other data (e.g. Blue Badge holder or DWP benefits records). Other records may show short-term disabilities (e.g. recovering from surgery). Records may need to indicate a fluctuating need.
Long term health conditions and disabilities
Note that mental capacity is not a binary thing - records may show that the person has had (or lacked) mental capacity at a certain time in relation to a ceertain decision, but this mustn't be used to infer a generic lack of capacity. Records of mental capacity will generally be held by health and social care systems, but may well be relevant to the person's other interactions, eg housing or welfare advice.
Home environment
Important for hospital discharge, e.g. if the home is too cluttered for the person to move around easily/safely. May also suggest care and support needs and/or a safeguarding issue (hoarding) in its own right. Might be captured in a Care Act assessment, in care workers' notes, or via a Safe and Well visit from the Fire and Rescue Service - and may be helpful to a firefighter attending a 999 call.
Background
Further narrative
To be completed
Risks
Risk
NHS is unwilling to provide relevant data
Mitigation
- Short term: May need to rely on consent.
- Explore the extent to which current hospital discharge arrangements include notifications to housing. If this is happening, what lawful basis for processing is relied on?
- Is there a professional accreditation body in the housing sector which upholds a professional standard of confidentiality? If so, GDPR Art. 9 (2)(h) and 9 (3) could be used.
Risk
Relevant health information isn't held in a well enough structured format that the appropriate data can be automatically extracted for sharing with the RSL
Mitigation
- This is a long-term problem, needing to be addressed through further work on the compatibility of data standards across health, social care and housing.
- If there's a social care involvement, their records may be better suited for sharing (though again, would need standards to be aligned) than NHS records.
- Much of the important information for sharing might be captured via the PRSB About Me standard. Could RSLs be encouraged to get tenants to complete the About Me record, then share it back with health and/or social care as appropriate?
