Scarborough Borough Council Join Health, Social Care and Housing

Overview

Scarborough Borough Council have worked closely with partners in Health and Social Care, to ensure Better Care Funding allocated is used to best effect. The new digital service is underpinned by the Granicus platform and meets the challenge to work more efficiently and improve productivity, radically reducing delivery times for housing adaptations, so maximising the benefits of grant funding and improving outcomes for vulnerable people.

SITUATION

Better Care Funding Allocated to Councils

National data and reports show the very real benefits of providing housing adaptations that support independent living. In 2019, £100,000,000 of Better Care Funding was allocated to Councils for Disabled Facility Grants (DFG’s). Distributed through local multi-agency Health and Wellbeing Boards, DFG’s provide the funds to enable elderly, disabled and vulnerable people to adapt their homes so that they can remain independent at home. Data shows DFG’s provide value and better outcomes:

• Every £1 spent on a DFG is worth £2 in terms of savings on care and life quality gains
• An average DFG costs less than £7,000 compared with a care home place of C£29,000 a year
• The cost to the NHS of falls in older people is over £1.4billion a year

SOLUTION

A Shared Digital Workspace

The Shared Digital Workspace provides the intuitive workflow to join up services around the needs of the individual. Data and case management information is securely and safely routed across organisational boundaries, making genuine multi-agency and citizen centred services possible. This complex process requires input from Health, Social Care and Housing. The Shared Digital Workspace enables tasks to be seamlessly joined up across all stages. Partner tasks are automatically coordinated online from application/referral, through Occupational Therapist assessment, eligibility checks, approvals, and technical case management, to successful completion. Forms and processes are fully mobile responsive, and the Offline solution makes remote and mobile working available to staff in all organisations, even where internet access is restricted or not available.

This seamless solution is ensuring older, disabled, and vulnerable people have the housing adaptations they need to retain the confidence to stay in their own homes. The service is enabling people to be discharged from hospital sooner by speeding up the process to install the necessary adaptations for safe independent living.

RESULTS

Reducing cost pressures on health and social care budgets

• Productivity has improved, with a 57% increase in applications being managed with the same resources
• Complex assessments are completed remotely by staff in a client’s home
• Urgent referrals can now be managed and approved from anywhere, at any time
• Declarations and consents can be signed off by the client and uploaded into the online process
• Works that would often take over six months are now being completed in weeks.
• The service has improved quality of life outcomes for more vulnerable local residents
• WRHIA has been able to contribute £40K into the Councils corporate saving targets

Scarborough have also redesigned their Handyperson and Wellbeing Services on the Granicus platform. These services address the wider determinants of health and wellbeing, coordinating services around an individual, providing choice and a holistic package of care that can meet a person’s often complex needs.

Prior to implementation the Handypersons service was heavily paper based and slow. Cost calculations and performance management were manual and very time consuming.

Now

• All key partners can log into the digital process
• A single assessment and personal details can be securely shared on a need to know basis
• Budget focused on “doers” not administration
• Agile working saves travelling time

Performance and productivity improvement are outstanding

• 35 – 40 referrals per week successfully managed by 2 handypersons
• 123 different officers across a spectrum of health, social care, voluntary and community organisations refer into the service
• 16.6% referrals actioned same day
• 45% referrals actioned within 48 hours

Wellbeing Assessments enable a fully scripted assessment to be completed in the Client’s home. The new process automatically produces full reports and support plans detailing the advice and referrals made for a service user. The service provides access and referrals to more than 25 different local care and support services.