Social care
There are many challenges facing adult social care services. The Department of Health wants adult services to work more closely with Health - which has its own evolving national requirements and standards. Social care departments face resourcing issues, increasing demand, new standards in professional practice and a history of being the poor relation. Client worries over data security are matched by practitioners' concerns about new ways of working. A recent communication from the Department of Health spoke of a new Improving Social Care Information work programme to enhance and develop the use of information held locally and support delivery of Putting People First. This strategic programme aims to respond to the specific needs of different parties in the system, whether those of service users planning their own support or councils sharing benchmarking information. It will combine technical and policy solutions to change the way information is collected, held and used by councils.
Technologies are now available to deliver better outcomes for clients more cost effectively than previously, and flexible working, supported by technolgoy, can enable greater productivity and greater efficiency from social worker resources.
Socitm Consulting helps social care departments with a wide range of assignments, from major business process re-engineering and workforce remodelling programmes to smaller projeects such as project and procurement reviews, business case development and gap analysis. Specific areas of work include:
- Information, ICT and service strategies for joined up services
- Joint health and social care initiatives (we have won awards for our innovative approaches to joint working)
- Integration of diverse initiatives
- Information governance, data protection, information security, joint working information sharing protocols
- implementing the electronic social care record, and more importantly, implementing electronic working processes
- business process reviews and improvement, including interagency working
- integration of adult services with corporate ICT
- integrated care, e-SAP and CAF implementation
- Self-directed care and individual budgets