What a person-specific moving & handling assessment must record

In one line: a person-specific assessment is the document that tells a carer, on a shift they have never done before, exactly how this person moves, with what, and with how many people.

Generic and person-specific are different documents

A generic risk assessment covers the service: the hoists in the building, the training all staff receive, the corridor widths, the falls procedure. It is essential, and it cannot tell you how to help Mrs Ahmed out of bed. That needs a person-specific assessment, written for one person, one set of tasks and one environment — and rewritten when any of those change.

What a good one records

• Function, honestly. What the person can do in each task: sit unsupported, take weight through their legs, hold a frame, follow a two-stage instruction. Observed in the real task, not inferred from a diagnosis, and noted for variation across the day — many people transfer well at 10am and not at 10pm.
• All predictable assistance. Every task that needs help, and the method for each: verbal prompting, hands-on guidance, a standing aid, a hoist. “Assistance of two” without a method is not a plan.
• The exact equipment. Device, model, size, sling type and loop configuration, safe working load, and whether it is compatible with the bed, chair and hoist it will be used with.
• The minimum number of carers for each task — and the reason. One task may genuinely need two people while every other task needs one; the assessment should say so rather than defaulting the whole package to two.
• Risk factors that change the method: pain, skin integrity, attachments such as catheters or a syringe driver, involuntary movement, weight-bearing ability, comprehension, anxiety, falls history, and the person’s own preferences and cultural needs.
• What to do when it goes wrong: stop criteria during a transfer, the contingency if the equipment fails, the action after a fall, and who to call.
• Consent and capacity. How the person’s agreement was obtained, and where a Mental Capacity Act best-interests decision applies.
• Review date and triggers. The events that bring the plan back for reassessment before the date arrives.

Length is not quality

The published assessment tools that work in practice share a design principle: short enough to be completed and read on a shift, specific enough to be acted on. A twelve-page form that nobody completes protects no one. Our reports are structured so that the carer-facing plan sits on one page, with the reasoning and risk assessment behind it for reviewers.

Who should write it

A competent assessor — in complex cases a physiotherapist or occupational therapist with moving and handling expertise — with the person, and where possible the carers who will deliver it, in the room. An assessment written from the office is a guess with a signature.