Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council
introduced CallConfirm for use in their in-house home care service
in August 2003. With an annual budget of £7 million, accounting for
40% of the domiciliary market, it has been a crucial element in
their drive to modernise the service and successfully manage the
12,000 visits to service users provided every week.
Having first heard about CallConfirm in 2001, Simon
Mallett, Service Manager - Home Services remembers being
impressed with the AURA development, enabling the vast majority of
calls to be made without incurring a telephone charge. At that
time, the administration of home care pay in Doncaster was entirely
paper based and consequently very labour intensive. Simon recalls,
"When I joined the Local Authority they were considering
introducing a computer based scheduling application. There were
however more obvious and immediate benefits in introducing
electronic monitoring and so we made a strategic decision to put a
system in place as a matter of priority".
Simon explains; "with the introduction of National
Domiciliary Care Standards we were looking for ways to free up
managers from administrative tasks so they could spend more of
their time with service users and staff". Like many home care
providers, Doncaster also needed accurate and timely information
about care actually delivered, as a part of their drive to deliver
'Best Value'. As Simon says "we needed to know precisely what
was happening in particular areas and throughout the Borough at any
given time. Often we had to rely on patchy information which was
particularly time consuming to extract and inevitably proved to be
less accurate than was required to manage a large, complex and
costly business".
Following some initial research the procurement of an electronic
monitoring system was put out to tender in the European Journal. Of
the 65 companies which responded 5 were short listed and asked to
submit detailed proposals and provide demonstrations. The
procurement team, which included Home Care Assistants nominated by
trade unions, then visited reference sites for the three successful
bidders. After careful consideration CM2000 were chosen because
CallConfirm was considered the most cost effective and user
friendly option.
Once CallConfirm had been chosen a series of road shows were
organised, to which all Home Care Assistants were invited. These
events were designed to make sure that everyone fully understood
why an electronic monitoring system had to be introduced, what
would be expected of them and the benefits that would be realised
for staff, service users and ultimately the organisation itself. A
pilot was then organised in one geographical area to evaluate
performance against the existing paper based timesheet system and
was successfully completed in 10 weeks. Once this had been done,
CallConfirm was rolled out across the Borough in 3 phases,
resulting in total implementation within just 8 months.
Simon recalls that staff fully embraced the system very quickly,
which he puts down to full and open consultation throughout the
procurement and implementation process. He says that, "Home
Care Assistants don't give electronic monitoring a second thought
anymore. It's now part of the culture with managers at all levels
in the organisation using the information it provides constantly to
help us add value and improve the quality of service provided to
end users".
Simon believes that home care is a prime example of a service
that can be transformed through the introduction of practical IT
solutions. He concludes that; "Unfortunately progress
nationally has been impeded by unfounded fears of industrial
relations problems and IT scare stories. The reality is very
different if managed in an inclusive and sensitive way. I hear of
too many Local Authorities who have approached this area in a half
hearted and uncommitted way, or who spend years of time and energy
trying to develop bespoke systems. By purchasing an off-the-shelf
system and introducing it quickly and totally, we have benefited
enormously. CallConfirm does everything we needed, leaving us free
to concentrate on improving our Home Care service, while CM2000 do
what they do best - updating and improving their product".