Effective Monitoring and Modernisation of Homecare
Our vision for adult social care is to support independence and increase the opportunities for adults to live in their own homes wherever possible, rather than in long-term residential care homes.
This workstream underlines the importance of the support offered by domiciliary care and the continued need for reliability and efficiency in service delivery.
One immediate benefit in the adoption of Electronic Home Monitoring is the generation of electronic timesheets in place of manual timesheets completed by care workers. This allows greater transparency of the services delivered and can either be used to calculate the billing, where users are charged for the service, or to generate invoices for external domiciliary care services.
Where appropriate, an electronic monitoring system can be introduced as part of a wider social care procurement strategy including ‘zoning' of home care services. Where external home care providers service discrete zones within an area through longer term contracts it becomes less demanding for a council to monitor the service, reduces travel time for care workers and allows providers to give some guarantee about the availability of work in their area.
There are practical issues around the consistency of the data systems and technology, how travel time is accounted and potential concerns around the acceptance and use of new technology.
In councils where these systems are utilised, there have been clear benefits in increased processing efficiencies, service reliability and transparency, and added security for staff working remotely or alone.
In developing this proposal, CSED initiated collaborative visits with councils, which have or are planning to implement a form of electronic monitoring of home care.
"The work CSED are doing is really helping us to implement an electronic monitoring system in Tower Hamlets. The CSED learning sets and reference guide outlined what we need to know, the problems we might face and have been a great help in formulating our plans"
Gerry O'Kello, Commissioning Manager PD and SI, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Feb '08
Latest Update - March 2008
CSED continue to support councils across the country with the introduction of effective monitoring of home care and its associated process and systems improvements. Falling costs of technology, the widespread adoption of mobile working and the development of web-based solutions, offer a much greater range of choice and increased service benefits. In addition, the need for interoperability between systems such as care management, HR, payroll and client charging has increased, and is seen by a number of councils as key to maximising efficiencies associated with initiatives. There has been a resurgent interest, as more councils recognise the widespread benefits of homecare entering the electronic age. These extend to suppliers, carers and clients, as the technology increasingly supports risk management, quality assurance, logistics and communication.
"The work CSED are doing is really helping us to implement an electronic monitoring system in Tower Hamlets. The CSED learning sets and reference guide outlined what we need to know, the problems we might face and have been a great help in formulating our plans"
Gerry O'Kello, Commissioning Manager PD and SI, London Borough of Tower Hamlets
National framework: CSED continues to work with the Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation as lead agency for the PRO 5 Group of Local Government Buying Consortia to create a collaborative Framework Agreement. The objective is to accelerate deployment timescales by reducing the burden of compliance with OJEU procurement procedures. It is anticipated the Framework will be in place by April 2008 and will host a range of solutions from leading edge and competitive system providers in the marketplace. Look out for further announcements shortly.Mobile Working in Home Care:In November 2007, Barnsley's Project SARAH went live, with CSED's Programme Director Richard Allmanpresenting an award to home care staff involved in this new project to implement CACI's inTouch. This is a new mobile working solution for home care, developed by CACI and Barnsley MBC, that brings many of the additional benefits we refer to above. The latest version of CSED's Reference Manual includes a study of Barnsley's implementation. Ifyou have not yet implemented or commissioned a monitoring solution, or even if you have, you may find this a useful read.
Update - June 2007
Having carried out a successful programme of support for councils throughout 2006 with a series of collaborative seminars and Learning Sets, the focus of our support to councils in development of effective monitoring systems has now shifted to specific support for individual councils who are on target to implement within the Gershon timeframe.
CSED conducted a nationwide poll for expressions of interest among councils active on this work and subsequently is providing tailored packages of spot consulting to 21 councils with active projects to implement Electronic Monitoring.
A smaller group of councils have received larger packages of consultancy of up to six days, including Salford, Kensington and Chelsea and Warwickshire. The activities within the Authorities have included review of business case documentation, facilitation of sessions to gather business requirements, consultation with providers of homecare, and development of project scoping documents.
The consultancy has proved valuable in allowing Authorities to validate their approaches to Electronic Monitoring, manage potential issues and barriers to implementation, and also develop communities of good practice for sharing ideas, tips and experiences.
To read about the work in your area please visit your region's page
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