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Prompting and supervision with Taking Nutrition
Client has MH problems including a phobia of choking on her food. She is unable to eat unless somebody else is present who she feels confident could assist her if she started choking.
However when somebody is present in this way client will eat with no need for prompting or encouraging. The mere presence is enough to reassure her.
At present she is in supported housing and so her phobia does not cause too much disruption. However she stated that if she was living alone she would not be able to eat at home. She thought that she would go to cafes or take her own food to eat in places where she felt safe e.g. outside her local police station. Client did not feel that encouragement/reassurance over the telephone would help - she has had lots of treatment to try and cure the phobia but it remains overwhelming to her.
Should she score points for Activity 2?
needing someone with you is supervision. Psychological need for supervision—that’s effectively what it is. She doesn’t feel safe enough to eat unless there is someone there to watch over her
needing someone with you is supervision. Psychological need for supervision—that’s effectively what it is. She doesn’t feel safe enough to eat unless there is someone there to watch over her
From the PIP regs:
“supervision” means the continuous presence of another person for the purpose of ensuring C’s safety
In reality there is no risk associated with her eating. She doesn’t need someone to be there to ensure her safety.
I think that any successful argument would need to be under prompting?
It’s a difficult one as she clearly has really significant problems in this area which if she was living independently would be causing a great deal of disruption to her daily life but I am struggling to fit the facts to the descriptors.
I miss DLA :(
The question is about taking nutrition, and there is a danger if she doesn’t eat, her health will suffer, so she needs someone there to trigger the ability to eat, what would happen if no one attended for days at a time, so I would argue Prompting is fully satisfied, if she will only eat when the other person is present. The definition of prompting says needs reminding or encouragement to undertake an activity, it would be a very narrow and unacceptable view to say that the other persons presence is not encouragement
Well, you could argue that safety is being ensured if she wouldn’t otherwise eat (i.e. would become malnourished) though that might be a bit of a stretch.
The other problem with ‘supervision’ though is that I’m not sure it can be properly said someone is receiving supervision in circumstances where those providing the supervision are entirely unaware that is what they are doing (i.e. when she’s eating in cafe or outside the local nick).