Bradshaw's Taxonomy of Need

Outline of the main principles

1. Tools for Assessment:
Critically appraise and provide a comprehensive analysis of the policies, principles
and process of assessment when working with people from your client group
and/or families/carers to assess their development, health and psychosocial care
needs.

2. The I exercise:

3. Determining Needs

4. Ewles and Simnett (2003)

5. Ideologies of need

6. Type of Need (common sense)
Maslow (1954) suggested that human needs could be structured
into five categories in
a hierarchy of ascending order of prepotency and probability of
appearance:
With reference to service provision, it has been claimed that
services should be geared to meet these needs, as social problems
are the results of these needs not being met.

7. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

8. Harvey 1973

9. Defining Need
•While these definitions of needs are functional and do provide a
loose boundary for what may be considered as need or no-need,
they may not be able to differentiate the needy from the no-need
groups

10. Bradshaw 1972
(Taxonomy of need)
•provided a methodology in making a ‘real’ need possible.
•His proposal was to first delineate four types of social needs, namely,
(a) normative; (b) felt; (c) expressed; and (d)comparative, then to
examine their presence in a given situation. The presence of all types
of needs is equated to real need.
•J Bradshaw, 1972, A taxonomy of social need, New Society ( March)
640-3; available online in Jonathan Bradshaw on Social Policy (PDF:
2mb download).

11. Real Need

12. Normative
Normative need tends to be professionally defined and has a
knowledge base. A
desirable standard is set by professionals, policy makers or social
scientists, against which the actual standard is compared. Those
below the standard are said to be in need of
support and special services.
 A good example is……………….

13. Felt
A felt need is equated to what people want. It can be defined easily
by asking service users or potential users what they wish to have.
Hence, a felt need can be inflated
by users’ reference to their own high expectation (for example, a
housing unit reaching a good private market standard).
 A felt need can be deflated by the potential users’ ignorance or
rejection of services (for example………………

14. Expressed
An expressed need is generally taken as equivalent to demand, as
the unmet need.
The notion is that one does not make a demand unless one feels
the need. However, considering that people requiring social
services are often those with fewer resources and education, they
do not often voice their demands. Sometimes, well-justified
collective demands, such as that for industrial safety, could easily
be taken as political activity against the governments, hence, there
is some reluctance for these needs to be expressed. Policy makers
normally take it that ‘no demand’ means ‘no need’. There are also
cultural reasons as to why a need is not expressed

15. Comparative
Comparative need is measured by reference to a user already
receiving the service in
question. Therefore, a person is in comparative need if he or she
has the same or worse characteristics as someone receiving the
service. The concept also can be applied to districts (for example,
district A provides free medical treatment while district B does
not) countries. However, this method of comparison leaves two
questions unanswered as only existing services are being
compared. “What if there is a need for a new service?”
“Does it also imply that the reference standard is faultless and no
longer needsimprovement?”

16. Nursing Assessment
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0sbJwKgxnQ
•Nursing Models
•Evidence of assessment
•Tools to identify needs and wants

17. Person centred assessment
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfaU-1VbM2k
•Care Pathways

18. Head to toe physical assessment
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGf8NvqoTNs&feature=related
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDR7B__2sQM

19. Health Need Assessment
•http://www.nice.org.uk/media/150/35/Health_Needs_Assessme
nt_A_Practical_Guide.pdf
•NICE Guidelines
•http://courses.essex.ac.uk/hs/hs915/Mid%20Hampshire%20PCT
%20HNA%20Toolkit.pdf

20. References
•Ewles, E. (2001) “Promotion Health A Practical Guide” 5
th
ed Bailliere
Tindall
•Simnett, I.
•
•Naidoo, J. (2000) “Health Promotion Foundations for Practice” 2
nd
ed
Bailliere Tindall.
•Wills, J.
•Scriven, A (2001) “Health Promotion Professional Perspectives”
Palgrave