In the News
On the 21 September, Health Secretary Sajid Javid gave a virtual address to London Tech Week on how technology can be used to make the world a healthier place. As part of his speech, he called for the need to “level up digital health inequalities… to ensure the long-term sustainability of health and social care.”
The call for greater digitalisation in social care is not a new one. Back in 2017, the National Audit Office said that a lack of data sharing had been holding back the integration of social care with health care, a key goal of the current government’s plans for social care.
Post-Pandemic Reform
Following the pandemic, social care has been the subject of major discussion, given how severely its infrastructure was impacted by Coronavirus. The need for greater collaboration between social care and other health services has been regularly cited as a priority. Technological systems to aid this collaboration, as well as further expansion and functioning of the proposed integrated care systems (ICS) such as SHREWD, developed by Transforming Systems, have been proposed. Such systems aim to link up social and community care and county councils with aspects of health care such as acute and ambulance systems.
Some social care providers have taken it into their own hands to drive digital and technological transformation in their industry. One care group, Morris Care, a provider with six care homes across Shropshire and Cheshire, triumphed at the recent Leaders in Care Awards for its ‘Time is Precious’ digital transformation programme (see our interview with its CEO, Lucy Holl, below). This aims to produce greater efficiency and improvements in care delivery through technological growth, including HR digitisation, hand-held devices for care staff to easily access care plans, and a new system for medication administration.
Industry Reaction: Data is Key
Following the announcement in early September of further details on social care reforms, reaction from leaders within the health tech digital care platforms sectors has been mixed. According to Will Smart, Global Director of External Relations for Dedalus, it was positive that innovation was recognised as a key enabler for the roles of the new ICSs, with data in particular being “fundamental to delivery”. However, despite the commitment to ICSs in the plan, Tomaž Gornik, Chief Executive of Better Care, feels the reforms are “lacking any direction” on the use of open data.
Since the announcement, HAS Technology has released a guide that it says aims to support local authorities in the digital transformation of social care, particularly as data from the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) 2021 Spring Survey showed that nearly two thirds of councils are looking to invest in digital and technology. Given a commission led by ADASS said in March this year that the adult social care sector was suffering from a lack of digital services and required efforts to normalise the use of digital within social care, the hope will be that the uptake of new technology to remove tasks like manual admin will, as Dr Ben Maruthappu hopes, “free up carers to focus on what they do best, which is care”.
Interview
Lucy Holl is the CEO of Morris Care Group, based in the West Midlands. The group was successful at the recent Leaders In Care Awards for its digital transformation programme aimed at improving the efficiency and the quality of care provided in its homes.
What key digital technology shortcomings did the pandemic expose in the adult social care sector?
The biggest challenge was constantly reviewing and assessing the care you are giving without going in the home, particularly when all the key information is held on paper. Homes were inaccessible to anyone not providing essential frontline care. Reviewing paper records remotely was not possible.
There was a heightened level of anxiety and stress among residents’ families and paper records couldn’t be seen to offer the reassurance that family and friends were looking for in relation to how their loved ones were being supported and cared for during this unprecedented period.
Pandemic-related staffing pressures meant that we needed more direct contact time with residents and anything we could do to take the pressure off the frontline teams to free them up from writing notes and records was essential. We estimate that putting in electronic care plans and digitalisation has saved all our carers between 4-6 hours each week as they are no longer writing up health care records and observations. This is precious time they can directly spend with residents.
What technological changes have you introduced to your organisation, consequently?
As many as possible, but there are a number of highlights. Electronic Care Planning has saved nursing and care teams almost 7,000 hours on average for each care home over the last year and our Electronic Medication Administration Records (eMAR) system has reduced medication errors by 78 per cent since it was rolled out to all homes.
To ensure our homes are up to standard, the use of FaultFixers maintenance software has ensured 819 faults in our homes were reported which were responded to, on average, within a day.
For enquiries about our care, using the ‘Found’ CRM system, Morris Care recorded over 436 enquiries which have been progressed and resulted in a record 137 residents moving in to receive care.
It’s not just the care that is important, however. For our employees we provide them with access to, Relias, an engaging online learning and development system that has over 500 modules to provide flexible learning on an app at a time to suit them. Furthermore, an online recognition and reward scheme is helping to celebrate staff excellence. It provides a dedicated portal with discounts on a wide range of well-known brands.
Have those changes improved the efficiency and care delivery in your organisation?
It has transformed the way we work and care for residents, we have more time for our carers to do the part of the job they enjoy, engaging and having fun with our residents. We have seen a significant improvement in our resident satisfaction survey year on year that demonstrates this.
We have seen a significant improvement in our resident satisfaction survey year on year that demonstrates this
We have access to all the care plans, medications records and audit tools as well as logging all our repairs and maintenance issues on handheld devices and laptops; we can see them at a glance alongside any issues in each home. The digital programme also has the added benefit of providing a higher quality of data and reporting. We can ask more varied questions to ensure all our resident have their needs personalised to them.
Is further digital transformation required to deliver the long-term sustainability of the sector?
Yes, we have only just begun. We want to open up all our electronic systems to appropriate family, friends and professionals while providing real time data so they and regulators can see an immediate synopsis of how an individual is doing 24/7. In the future I would hope that social care and the NHS can provide seamless sharing of all relevant health and medical information to allow seamless care and treatment.
What key obstacles stand in the way of other local authorities and care groups delivering the digital transformation necessary?
Courage, time, and money – there has been little policy, tax benefits or financial support to those in the social care sector to implement the digital changes. We all need to take the leap of faith, think the unthinkable and have the confidence that we can do this. Care and technology are relatively new, but our workforce and their adaptability will surprise you. Once you start you will never look back.
Opinion
Our opinion this month comes from Julian David, Chief Executive of techUK, who earlier this year unveiled a ten point plan for healthtech to ensure digital technology is at the forefront of improving outcomes and transforming how care is delivered.
Fostering Integration in Health and Social Care Through Technology
Last month the Government published plans to ‘Build Back Better’ in health and social care, underscoring the importance of “better integration between health and social care, so that care becomes less fragmented and people are cared for in the right place for their needs.” This integration will take place primarily through the establishment of Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), which the Government has stated will bring greater convenience, choice, and flexibility to citizens.
Digital transformation is key to unlocking the integration with health that heralds significant improvements to the UK’s social care system. Shared care records, home monitoring devices, decision-making support tools for carers, and many more digital innovations have the potential to transform the UK’s social care sector.
Although the NHSX tech plan for health and care acknowledged that technology has the potential to deliver significant system-wide benefits for people in care and care professionals, it highlighted that the social care sector is facing its own challenges in reaping the benefits of digitisation. According to the tech plan, around a third of social care organisations are still largely paper based, with less than 10 per cent of carers able to digitally view or update care records. This paper-based approach continues to obstruct integration between health and social care, with only 29 per cent of social care professionals surveyed reporting that they have digital access to the information they need from health care providers.
We hear a lot about the increasingly complex needs of an ageing population, but the solution to this lack of integration need not be complex
We hear a lot about the increasingly complex needs of an ageing population, but the solution to this lack of integration need not be complex. For instance, IEG4, a software company that recently launched the UK’s first Continuing Healthcare (CHC) patient portal with South Cheshire CCG, creates solutions that simplify the complex landscape of local government by bringing together social care, council tax, welfare, local community services and health all in the same place to provide a directory of services.
IEG4 is, among many other techUK members, an example of how digital innovation is transforming the social care sector. In February 2021, techUK published the Ten Point Plan for Healthtech to outline recommendations for how we can drive progress. With the help and collaboration of our health and social care members, we called for the Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, NHSX, and local authorities to support the integration of social care through digital transformation.
techUK and its members stand ready to help deliver this transformation by overcoming the lack of interoperability, standards, and common processes that make the current market so difficult for suppliers.