Decision details
Electronic Care Delivery Management system for Council led providers services
Decision Maker: Assistant Director - All Age Independence & Provider Services
Decision status: Recommendations Approved
Is Key decision?: No
Is subject to call in?: No
Decision:
Purchase and implementation of an Electronic
Care Delivery Management system for in house provisions.
Reasons for the decision:
On 1st December 2021,
the government published the social care reform White Paper. People
at the heart of care, which sets out a 10-year vision for
transforming the delivery of health and social care. The paper
detailed that one of the priorities is for 80% of Health and social
care services that are registered with CQC (Care Quality
Commission), to have digital social care records by March 2024 and
non-registered services to have digital records by March 2025. The
Department of Health and Social care and NHS England are leading
the Digital Social Care Programme and have devised preferred
suppliers that are compliant with the asks from the white paper
including being DSPT and GDPR compliant. CQC have endorsed this,
releasing further guidance on the 20th September 2023, Digital
Record Systems: achieving good outcomes for people using adult
social care services.
Wirral Council in October 2022, opted to in-source several
previously outsourced commissioned services that deliver direct
social care services to Wirral. These provider services included
Wirral Evolutions Day service provision and Shared Lives Wirral. In
addition, the Adult Social Care and Public Health Committee
approved the development of a new Council led Community Reablement
offer, ‘AbleMe’. Currently there is no Electronic Care
Delivery Management System (ECDMS) in place for these services to
use, previously this would have been available from the outsourced
providers. ECDMS is required to operate within adult social care
best practice and to be legislative compliant with the Care Quality
Commission. As these Council led provider services deliver direct
care services to Wirral residents, it is a requirement for the
Council to provide a ECDMS - an electronic system that manages all
aspects of the delivery services, including client records,
detailed care plans, risk assessments, medicines management,
staffing records and rostering for service delivery.
• Total cost for 3 year contract £120,452
• £32,364 per year for any additional contract
extension. 1+1
32,634
• Total cost if 1+1 extensions applied
£185,180
Alternative options considered:
Option 1 - Do
nothing
Description: Not purchasing or implementing the required
appropriate Electronic Care Delivery Management system
(ECDMS).
Resource Requirements:
• Direct delivery services would need to use a paper-based
system which would have increased resource and capacity
implications which impacts on service delivery and improved
outcomes for people accessing the services.
• Increased Administrative resource required to operate a
paper-based system.
• Storage and file archive management.
• Printing documents and costs.
• Stationary increased costs.
• Human errors may occur and lost paperwork resulting in
increased complaints and incidents.
Cost:
• Additional administrative support.
• Appropriate long term secure document storage facilities for
paper-based records.
• Printing costs to sustain paper-based system.
• Increased auditing time for paper-based quality assurance
process.
Quality
• Continuity – the risk of service disruption and single
points of failure would continue.
• Resilience – this will rely on manual, people
intensive process, and not improve digital maturity within the
council.
• Duplication – of skills and efforts of staff, low
staff capacity to meet demand and not releasing staff time to
care.
Risks
• Council services not compliant with Care Act and CQC
legislation and regulation.
• Reputational damage if council not able to deliver services
of a high quality.
• System not able to “speak to
others”/interoperability, so delays in transfer of care,
which has wider health and care repercussions.
Interests and Nature of Interests Declared:
The decision has been taken under Part 3 Section C - Overview and Scheme of Delegations of Authority to Officers as the decision is not reserved to a Committee or Sub-Committee and the Director is satisfied that paragraphs 2(a) to 2(c) apply.
Background Papers
· Strategic Change Business case- 08/11/2023
· Strategic Change Business case – 11/12/2023
All in house provider services were agreed to be brought back in house through the ASCPH committee process.
· Community Reablement Service- ASCPH committee report 13/06/23
· Shared Live Services ASCPH committee report- 23/09/2021.
· Wirral Evolutions ASCPH committee report.
Publication date: 21/03/2024
Date of decision: 19/03/2024