Failed placements begin at pre-admission, not on moving day.
The Carevia Pre-Admission Assessment works in two honest stages. Part A tests whether your service can genuinely meet the person's needs: staff skills, training gaps, compatibility and registration. Part B, Know Me From Day One, builds the record that means staff know the person before they arrive.
Together they produce a defensible decision, a person-centred day one, and a living care and support plan with a full review cycle.
A blank box asks nothing. So nothing gets asked.
Most pre-admission failures are not failures of caring. They are failures of asking.
The typical pre-admission form is a set of headings over empty boxes, completed from the referral pack, under time pressure, with a hopeful yes already half-decided. The needs the form never asked about arrive with the person, and staff spend the first weeks discovering someone they should already have known.
The Pre-Admission Assessment is built around a different standard: every domain asks the questions a competent assessor would ask, and the decision has to face the evidence.
- Structured prompts in every domain, from IDDSI levels and SUDEP risk to tenancy skills and sensory needs.
- An honest test of staff skills: can the team you actually have meet this need, and if not, can the gap close before admission?
- Checks on inherited assessments: date of the most recent, does it still apply here, and do you actually hold a copy?
- Four decision options, including the honest no, each recorded with rationale and accountability.
- Personal detail gathered only after a positive decision, because it is not respectful to collect someone's life story and then decline them.
A pre-admission that earns the decision it records.
Built to connect the referral, the honest assessment, the decision, the person, and the plan that follows them in.
Fifteen structured domains
Physical health, mental health, autism and learning disability, mobility, communication, capacity and decision-making, personal care, skin integrity, nursing and clinical care, medication, nutrition and hydration, allergies and epilepsy, independent living skills, behaviours and risk, and other needs. Every domain asks, not just records.
Registration before admission
Identifies the primary care need against the CQC service user bands and asks whether your statement of purpose holds it, with a plain warning citing Regulation 12 of the Registration Regulations 2009 where it does not. A separate gate handles under-18 referrals.
Staff skills and training gaps
Domain by domain: can the team you actually have meet this need? Training gaps are recorded with whether they can close before admission, a named owner and a date, and they flow automatically into the decision.
Setting-specific compatibility
Compatibility means different things in different settings. Housemates and tenancy in supported living. The people already living there in residential and nursing. Rota reality, the home environment and lone working in home care.
Inherited assessments, checked
For SaLT, pressure risk, physio and OT, capacity assessments and PBS plans: the date of the most recent, whether it still applies in your setting, and whether you actually hold a copy. A score quoted in a referral is not the assessment.
A judgment panel that never decides
Live tallies of unmet needs, open gaps and compatibility concerns, with the evidence reflected back in plain language. Choose a decision the evidence does not support and the tool says so. The decision, and the accountability, stay with you.
Know Me From Day One
Unlocks only on a positive decision. What time they get up, bath or shower, exactly how they take their coffee and toast, hobbies, routines, family, friends, GP, communication, life story, what upsets and what calms, and the five things every staff member must know. Prints as a Day One Profile for the team.
Support planning with a full risk cycle
Every assessed need carries over: risk before support, the support that will actually be provided, and residual risk. Referral prompts appear when risk stays high, and each clinical domain asks whether a relevant professional was involved in the plan, with contact details recorded so staff never have to hunt for them.
A living care and support plan
A review log with reading of notes since the last review, changes and how they were shared, person involvement, a review timeline, next review dates and a pre-filled email reminder. Autosave, JSON backup and restore, and two print modes.
Ready to make the next admission the best-planned one your service has done?
Get Carevia Pro+ and use the Pre-Admission Assessment to decide with evidence, protect the honest no, and make sure the person is known from day one.
One workflow from referral to review.
Triangulate before you type
Read the referral and every assessment in full, ask the person and the people who know them, and observe a visit where possible. The tool asks how the assessment was triangulated, so the evidence trail starts before the first field.
Check the foundations
Primary care need, service user bands, statement of purpose, and whether staff are skilled, trained and competent for the primary need. Registration comes before admission.
Work the domains honestly
Answer the structured prompts, rate the level of need, and record whether your current staff can meet it. Training gaps get an owner and a date. Compatibility adapts to your setting.
Make the decision the evidence supports
Four honest options: we can meet these needs, we can with actions completed first, we cannot currently, or we cannot. The rationale is required, and warnings you proceed past print with the record.
Build Know Me From Day One
On a positive decision, Part B unlocks. Complete the profile in the person's voice, plan the support with its risk cycle, and print the Day One Profile for the team before the person arrives.
Keep the plan alive
Export the JSON as the record. When a review is due, import it, read a sample of the notes since the last review, record what changed and how it was shared, set the next date and email yourself the reminder.
The referral pack is testimony. This tool asks for evidence.
Most pre-admission documents record what the referral says. The harder questions are whether your service can honestly deliver it, whether the assessments you are inheriting are current and actually in your hands, and whether the person will be known or merely admitted.
The Pre-Admission Assessment is built specifically around those questions.
Evidence, honesty and accountability work together.
Triangulate before judging
The strongest pre-admission decisions are built the way strong leadership insight is built: read the referral fully, ask the person and their people, observe a visit, then feed what you found forward into an honest deliverability decision.
Testimony is not evidence
A Waterlow score mentioned in a referral and a Waterlow assessment you hold, dated and current, feel the same in a meeting and are worlds apart as assurance. The tool asks the provenance question on every inherited assessment.
The tool never decides
Every warning is loud, every warning prints with the record, and nothing is ever blocked. Professional judgment stays with the registered manager, and the record shows it was exercised with the evidence in view.
Evidence that the admission was safe to make.
The tool is designed to support honest assessment and defensible decision-making in adult social care. It helps registered managers organise evidence around the questions that matter after an admission as well as before it:
- Could the service meet this person's needs with the staff and skills it actually had?
- Was the primary care need within the service's registration?
- Were inherited assessments current, applicable and actually held?
- Was compatibility with the people already using the service honestly considered?
- Was the person known from day one, and is the plan still being reviewed against real practice?
A practical pre-admission assessment for care homes, nursing homes, supported living and home care.
If you are looking for a pre-admission assessment template for a care home, a supported living compatibility assessment, a nursing home pre-admission form or a structured way to decide whether your home care service can take on a new package, this tool is designed for that job.
Rather than another form to file, the Carevia Pre-Admission Assessment helps registered managers and quality teams connect the referral to an honest capability assessment, a defensible decision, a person-centred day one, and a living care and support plan with reviews.
It can support your wider governance evidence by helping you organise answers to questions such as:
- Can our current staff meet this person's needs, and where are the training gaps?
- Is the person's primary care need within our registered service user bands?
- Are the SaLT, pressure risk, capacity and PBS assessments we are inheriting current, and do we hold copies?
- Is this person compatible with the people already living here, or with our rota and staffing model?
- What support will be provided against each need, and what risk remains once it is?
- Is the plan being reviewed against the daily notes, and when is the next review due?
This is not simply a pre-admission form. It is a structured decision and planning tool for services that want every admission to start with honesty and every person to be known from day one.
Carevia holds nothing. Your records stay with you.
The tool runs entirely in the browser. Information entered into the Pre-Admission Assessment is not transmitted to or stored by Carevia.
You can create a local JSON backup of each assessment and restore it later for reviews. Starting a new assessment automatically exports a backup of the current record before clearing it.
Important
A completed assessment contains special category data about a real person. The tool is local-only by design, which makes the device your responsibility: use a work device with a lock screen, store exported files securely in line with your data protection policy and UK GDPR obligations, transfer outcomes into your care planning system, and delete records once they have served their purpose.
Move from "the form was completed" to "the person was known from day one".
Use the Pre-Admission Assessment to decide with evidence, protect the honest no, and turn a good decision into a living care and support plan.
Carevia Pro+ membership gives access to the Pre-Admission Assessment alongside other interactive Carevia tools.
Before you get started
Is the Pre-Admission Assessment a standalone product?
The Pre-Admission Assessment is included with Carevia Pro+. The call-to-action on this page takes you to the Pro+ checkout.
Which care settings does it cover?
Supported living, residential care, nursing homes and home care. The compatibility section adapts to the setting you choose, from housemates and tenancy to rota feasibility and lone working.
Why is Part B locked until a decision is made?
Know Me From Day One opens only when Part A records a positive decision. This is deliberate: it is not respectful, or defensible, to gather intimate personal detail about someone you may decline. The lock protects the person as well as the service.
Does the tool make the admission decision?
No, and it never will. The judgment panel tallies the evidence and reflects it back in plain language, and it warns you if your chosen decision disagrees with your recorded evidence, but every field stays live and every decision stays selectable. Professional judgment and accountability remain with the registered manager.
Can it really work as the care and support plan?
The exported record combines the assessed needs, the support plans with their risk cycle, the person-centred profile and a review log with timelines and reminders. Together these form a working care and support plan. It does not replace your daily care records or a care management system, and the printed or exported version staff use must always be the current one.
How do reviews work?
Export the JSON when the assessment is complete. When a review is due, import it, add a review entry, read a sample of the notes written since the last review, record what changed and how it was shared, set the next review date and use the built-in email reminder so the date lives in your inbox.
Where is the data stored?
The tool runs in your browser and uses local browser storage. Data entered into the tool is not transmitted to or stored by Carevia. Because a completed assessment contains special category data, you are responsible for the security of the device and any exported files.
For assessment support and reflective practice purposes only. Carevia does not guarantee regulatory outcomes. The tool is not legal, clinical or regulatory advice and does not replace professional judgement, clinical assessment or official CQC guidance. The admission decision, and accountability for it, rests with the registered manager and provider.