How person centred approaches helped one young man take charge of his health recording.
We’re delighted to share this resource of the Bristol Stool Chart which was co-created by Matthew, a young man supported by MacIntyre.
Health recording is a big focus of our health agenda at MacIntyre, and have produced documents to better record a person's health and changing needs. The Health Calendar, also known as the Anticipatory Care Calendar produced by the Innovation Agency, a stream of the NHS in the North West, is a key tool which all of our staff use to capture a person’s baseline in regards to their health and wellbeing and is a great tool in daily recording of health changes.
Matthew used to be very private and independent with his toileting so staff completed the Health Calendar as “self-caring”. However, when Matthew started to lose some weight, it became important to understand exactly what was happening, so conversations with Matthew started about visiting the doctor and booking some blood tests in readiness for these appointments to start. The conversations also included the need to accurately record of Matthew’s bowel movements (poo) and it was important for Matthew to become involved in this.
Together a weekly Poo Chart was created to accurately record what type of poo Matthew was having, helping to track patterns. Using the Bristol Stool Chart flashcards Matthew is now able to identify his poo and to tell staff for the records.
We asked Matthew whether he would like to help other people who struggled to know what type of poo they had and he said ‘yes’ so here is his version of the Bristol Stool Chart in video format –
Our thanks to Matthew, his team and MacIntyre Health Team for working together to create this new resource which we hope will help others take an active role in the recording of bowel movements, keeping healthy and safe.
