Transforming Adult Social Care: Optimise Resources & Maximise Impact

It’s very accurate. The average correlation between assessed needs and the cost of care in our algorithms is over 0.9. Comparably, other resource allocation systems tend to result in a correlation of 0.7 or lower. The higher the correlation, the greater the accuracy.

An accurate algorithm can produce substantial financial savings compared to a less accurate one. This is because in practice, ‘over-allocation’ tends to be difficult to notice and control, whereas ‘under-allocation’ tends to be simply topped-up to the ‘correct budget’ and no higher.

Formulate allows you to focus on the thing that matters: helping people to put support into place that works for them, whilst keeping your organisation ‘within budget’.

Since 2009, we have supported more than 60 implementations of Formulate across local authorities, partnership trusts and NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups, collecting and analysing tens of thousands of cases during this time.

Our experience in this area is unparalleled and we have a very clear path to successful rollout. You can feel confident that your locally-configured Formulate product(s) will work well for you from day one.

To allow us to learn from our customers and to allow our customers to learn from each other, we facilitate regular national and local user group meetings and workshops.

Formulate customers are supported by a dedicated team with a wide range of skills and experience. The team work closely together to identify where emerging good practice in one area could benefit other areas and frequently make connections between people to facilitate this.

It’s essential for a person or their representative to choose the personalised support that will work for them. Formulate supports this by estimating an accurate, upfront allocation of resources based on a good assessment.

It has also been in continuous development and refinement since 2009, involving thousands of cases from around the country and it is proven beyond doubt that the relationship between assessed need and resultant care cost is extremely strong.

The following information covers some of the key benefits of Formulate for Adult Social Care. These have been captured from both our own analysis and from local authority business cases:

• Provides a systematic financial and quality assurance tool to support delegated decision-making at various levels.
• Provides clarity for frontline staff and individuals in understanding the money available for support planning and personal budgets.
• Empowers individuals to exercise choice and control at the support planning stage, allowing for greater creativity.
• Consciously targets money according to need, demonstrating fairness, consistency and transparency.
• Generates a range of outputs and additional information alongside the estimated budget, meaning that a broad range of options and ways to meet need can be considered.
• Local configuration reflects provider fee markets, enabling accuracy and ensuring the estimated allocation is sufficient to meet the assessed need, whilst remaining within the overall financial envelope.
• Formulate is informed by best practice assessments, meaning estimated allocations are driven by needs and outcomes, rather than a focus on just cost.
• Designed to support all cohorts and living situations, meaning Formulate can be more widely used than other systems (e.g. points-based RASs may only cover up to a certain cost level, or be usable only for those living in independent community settings).
• Enables a move to needs-based budgets for residential and nursing home placements, promoting sustainability in the market and helping with readiness for the 2023 funding reforms.
• Provides a robust evidence basis for decision-making.
• Provides a quantitative measurement of outcomes, making it possible to analyse the effectiveness of particular interventions or commissioning decisions (e.g. reablement, community brokerage).
• When used alongside Formulate for Children’s Social Care, supports easier transition of young people from children’s to adults’ services due to compatible budget calculation methodologies.
• The national benchmarking programme allows local authorities to compare their decisions and costs to others using the tool - to understand the national vs local picture.
• Imosphere actively facilitates sharing of best practice and networking across the country.

We also offer expert advice and support through every step of the implementation process. This does not change after go-live, with day-to-day support and regular ‘health checks’ included.

We believe that collectively, these benefits easily outweigh the costs, especially when considering the local cost of developing, implementing and maintaining an alternative local solution.

Formulate for Adult Social Care is actively used in a number of different national IT providers’ systems, including System C (Liquidlogic) LAS, Servelec Mosaic, Advanced CareDirector and OLM Carefirst.

Wherever possible, we work closely with suppliers to ensure that the integration solution is as seamless and feature-rich as each system allows.

If your local authority is using an IT system which is not currently compatible with Formulate, we can:

- Discuss with you how Formulate could be built in, including participating in conversations with a 3rd party supplier where relevant.

- Set your local authority up to use Formulate via our very simple web-based ‘CareCalc’ platform - which can work alongside your main system either long-term or as an interim solution if a change in main system is anticipated. CareCalc captures system IDs only (no identifying data about individuals).