Middlesbrough Council has become the latest local authority to deploy Single Assessment Process software from Liquidlogic in a bid to deliver electronic data sharing and remote working between the council’s social care department and Middlesbrough Primary Care Trust.
The single assessment process (SAP) for older people was introduced in the National Service Framework for Older People. Detailed guidance was published in January 2002.
SAP’s purpose is to ensure that older people receive appropriate, effective and timely responses to their health and social care needs, and that professional resources are used effectively.
Middlesbrough Council was previously using a paper-based system which meant that communication between nurse carers and council carers was often difficult and strained.
Middlesbrough Social Services’ SAP lead, Fred Taylor, told E-Health Insider Primary Care: “We had been considering switching to electronic SAP for years but we felt that we needed to fully prepare for a change in system before we could do this. Many of our staff have worked here for years, and forgetting the old paper-based methods of working seemed impossible.
“However, we had to make life more beneficial for the patient, and the only way to do this was to standardise patient records and have one complete case history for all involved to have access to. Being able to update case assessment notes just once, without the potential inconsistencies in reporting was paramount.”
The council appointed an IT support team, HBS IT Services, to work with both its social care department and the local Primary Care Trust in implementing Liquidlogic’s PROTOCOL e-SAP system and integrating existing records onto the system.
As part of the move towards electronic records, the council also invested in tablet PCs to use Liquidlogic’s ‘briefcase’ functionality, allowing care workers to download a health check form and case history from the main system to take on site visits.
Taylor said: “Training staff to use these new tablet PCs was the biggest challenge. It meant having to get them to forget their previous ways of working and move towards carrying just an updated tablet PC with them, which they could update and store on a central record. For many, it seemed impossible and they craved the paper system they had worked with for years.”
Notes made remotely onto the tablet PC by care workers are immediately synchronised into the shared interface so that if service users are referred to hospital or intermediate care, the hospital staff and any intermediate carers can access and update these case notes on the SAP, which is something that Middlesbrough council staff now appreciate.
“However, with time, they appreciate the usefulness of the system a lot more. Liquidlogic’s SAP system has revolutionised the way Middlesbrough performs its case assessments, enabling Middlesbrough to deliver a better quality of service and care to our service users. It has truly revitalized how health and social care agencies communicate,” added Taylor.
Jane Keenan, the project leader for the Community SAP project on behalf of the Strategic Health Authority added: “Social workers could previously only input basic information onto the social care system, SWIFT. With the new SAP interface, social workers can now expand upon the basic case assessment notes by entering a Service User’s personal preferences, for example, that ‘Elizabeth prefers to be called Betty’.
“In this way, all subsequent care workers now know to call Elizabeth ‘Betty’, thus building a good rapport with the service user and fostering confidence in our health and social care system as a result.”
The majority of the borough’s social care information is now communicated through the SAP system.
Tony Parkinson, head of performance and planning in social care at Middlesbrough, said: “Strategically, we were committed to this project from the outset. Without doubt it has provided a better service from the customer’s perspective, modernised the way in which assessments are undertaken by care managers and enabled greater information sharing between health and social care agencies. It delivers more than this though – it is a real driver for promoting an integrated approach to the delivery of services provided by a number of agencies.”
Middlesbrough plans to use the SAP system platform for further integration of health and social services in the near future.
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