Health and social care software specialist Liquidlogic has announced changes to its Integrated Children’s System following a report on child protection that calls for an overhaul of ICS systems used throughout England.
A second interim report from the Munro Review of Child Protection, published this month, says that ICS systems remain a poor tool for mapping the child’s journey from needing to receiving effective protection from abuse and neglect.
It says there is nowhere in current systems for a child to tell their own story or for the family’s history to be effectively summarised.
Instad, it says there is an over-concentration on repetitive data entry. The review also suggests that the performance management regime within current systems makes errors more rather than less likely to occur.
The review, led by Eileen Munro, professor of social policy at the London School of Economics, is considering how user-centred design of assessment and decision making tools could provide better aids to professional reasoning.
The interim report says the review is working in particular with practitioners on how the design of Integrated Children’s System software can be made more user?friendly and efficient.
Liquidlogic said it has interpreted the review as a green light to press ahead with designs for more efficient family worked supported by its PROTOCOL Integrated Children’s System.
The company plans changes including enhancements to existing functionality for working across a group of siblings and a concept called My View, which will allow practitioners to tailor their view of the ICS to meet their needs.
The Munro review recommends that local authorities should audit their own ICS systems to see how easily the child’s story can be extracted, how efficient frontline workers feel they are, how easy it is to extract data needed to inform decision making, and what help has been provided and its impact.
Liquidlogic said it would work closely with its customers on the development of the PROTOCOL ICS as the implications of the Munro report are absorbed. It will be discussing further enhancements at its next ICS User group meeting on 3 March.
It said the PROTOCOL solution already allows uses to design individual forms and reflect local customisations and that some councils have taken advantage of this.
ICS systems have faced a stream of criticism from the children social care sector since their implementation. Researchers have claimed the systems have the potential to undermine good social work practice.
Social workers have also reported that the systems could be too prescriptive, too long and repetitive and cumbersome to use. Professor Munro is due present her final report and recommendations to the government in April.