200,000th e-SAP assessment in Islington

Social workers, district nurses and community nurses in Islington have completed 200,000 shared assessments using Liquidlogic’s PROTOCOL electronic Single Assessment Process software, the company has announced.

The 200,000th assessment is the latest milestone to be reached by a joint project run by the London Borough of Islington and NHS Islington. The two organisations decided to share information about clients two years ago in a bid to eradicate duplication of effort and improve care.

The Liquidlogic software is used by 300 managers, social workers and occupational therapists and 100 district, community and specialist nurses covering a population of 180,000.

The council and the primary care trust say they now have extensive referral pathways between NHS and social services and sharing of records and case notes as well.

The system has also been extended to cover out-of-hours services such as emergency social work and night nursing and is available 24 hours a day.

Howard Smith, e-business development manager at the London Borough of Islington, said: “The combined health and social care system has made a tremendous difference to how we operate.”

Smith said the Islington Welfare Rights team accepts e-referrals from all practitioners using the e-SAP system and sends onward referrals to the Department of Work and Pensions and housing teams electronically.

He added: “As well as speeding up the assessment and referral process, the system has also enabled contact with people who may previously not have been reached.

The process has recently been improved by the addition of an online self assessment tool which enables users or their representative to start the contact assessment process securely over the internet.”

Liquidlogic said it was delighted to see at first hand the benefits that joint working between a local authority and a local NHS service could bring.

Liquidlogic was acquired in July 2009 by healthcare IT specialist System C which the companies said was part of a strategy to build the UK’s first major health and social services supplier.

The two companies said they were now working together to deliver integrated solutions across the health and social care sector.

Dr Ian Denley, chief executive of System C, said the company was committed to delivering productivity gains by integrating services.

He added: “Islington is a fine example of how this can be achieved by using the appropriate technology to interface between organisations, services and care settings and by putting the patient’s needs firmly at the centre.”