The Challenge
Digital First has worked alongside the bi-boroughs of Westminster City and Kensington & Chelsea Councils to provide specialist advice in the design, development and benefits evaluation of a new Adult Social Care digital platform to improve service delivery and efficiency and deliver better outcomes for service users.
The main aims of the project were to:
- Show how digitisation can offer platforms, applications and tools opportunities to re-design the overall service delivery model to change how customers and service users are engaged and demand is managed
- Have a greater understanding of what the data is showing within the current service model surrounding user enquiries and engagement, assessment and care management and costs of short and long term (SALT) care
- Help improve productivity, especially via mobile working, to allow social workers and staff to focus more on assessment and review and production of care packages by reducing time spent on processing
- Understand how data can evoke better decision making and service planning to deliver better outcomes
The Solution
Digital First worked across and collaborated with key operational, technical and policy staff across the two boroughs to assess the design and development of the emerging digital platform to identify, capture and quantify the range of opportunities and benefits that a fully integrated digital platform for adult social care services can deliver.
In assessing the digital platform, we:
- Assessed and set out the scope of the platform, such as customer self-service and assessment, staff productivity, e-marketplace and data analytics
- Widely engaged key stakeholder through workshops, show and tells, user story generation for benefits identification and analysis
- Develop the benefits model around the scope of the digital platform, development models of confidence, risk and measures
- Produced final reports and presentation to set out the direction of travel, key stages of design and deployment and benefits management to build a power case for strategic change
The Results and Benefits
The implementation of the digital platform provides financial benefits which include:
- Potential savings of up to £12.3m which provide opportunity for the development and rollout of the new digital platform in Adult Social Care
- 3rdparty savings from contract savings of all types across the provision of care, technology license and support savings and temporary staff agency spending
- Overhead savings, such as reduction in corporate support service costs due to services shaping and structuring around the digital platform and travel and accommodation costs due to staff working more flexibly
- A raise in income for councils due to closer relationships with self-funders and having access to a wider range of care providers, agencies and services
There are also some Non-financial benefits which include:
- Greater staff efficiency due to removal of manual tasks by automating processes and providing customer self-service, allowing staff to prioritise their resources on the customers in need
- Customers being able to access information and notifications immediately allows easier and quicker access to services due to having more control and choice over their care
- The data provided from users can benefit organisations by targeting and designing prevention services and quality assure care providers to help shape the market in the future to better serve the increasing community of users
