How going digital has helped Carers in Southampton better support unpaid carers

Carers in Southampton introduced Care Partner as part of its goal to digitise their unpaid carer’s assessments, personal budget estimates, support plans and reviews. The outcome of its introduction has helped the charity save time by digitising many of its administrative tasks.

As part of the introduction of Care Partner, the team carries out unpaid carer’s assessments using Imosphere’s embedded FACE Toolsets and estimate Personal Budgets using Formulate.

Since digitising their processes, a key outcome has been their ability to focus more time on having holistic conversations with unpaid carers about their needs and how they can support them.

Background

Carers in Southampton is part of Southampton Mencap. They are a charity supporting unpaid adult carers who give their time to help family members, friends or neighbours with additional needs.

They offer guidance, signposting, information, carers cards and various other support services, in addition to providing statutory carer’s assessments on behalf of Southampton City Council.

As a part of the carer’s assessment, the organisation also helps eligible unpaid carers access Personal Budgets and devise person-centred support plans to meet their outcomes.

Improving the carer’s experience

The team approached Imosphere as they were looking for tools to improve the experience of the carers while also digitising many of their paper-based processes.

They wanted person-centred tools that provided a standardised template for consistency, reflected the natural flow of a conversation, and aligned with the principles of the Care Act (2014). They also needed an accurate and consistent tool to help them estimate personal budgets for unpaid carers.

The goal was to adopt a digital platform that would help them become more efficient but enable them to retain the same quality assessment and support as before.

Digitising assessments and support plans

Carers in Southampton implemented Imosphere’s digital care management system, Care Partner. Since implementation, unpaid carer’s records have become much more accessible. Assessors no longer spend time looking for information, which has given them back more time to provide advice and support to the carers they work with.

Within Care Partner, assessors complete the Carer’s Assessment (the Record of Carer’s Situation), Carer’s Support Plan and Carer’s Support Plan Review, with the system supporting them to move between each form seamlessly.

Functionality such as intelligent copy-forward means that key information and outcomes are brought through at each stage. This ensures that the carer only tells their story once, allowing the focus to be on progressing the carer’s outcomes rather than repeating information.

The results

• Unpaid carer’s records have become easily accessible, saving assessors time finding information.

• Reduced paperwork means more time is spent providing advice and support to unpaid carers.

• The accuracy of Formulate has enabled the team to provide fair and consistent personal budget estimates.

• Assessors have been able to quickly adopt a digital way of working due to the user-friendliness of Care Partner.

• The team has been able to maintain a streamlined workflow while receiving the benefits of digitising processes.

Next steps

The next step is to implement Imosphere’s reporting suite, Atmolytics. This will enable the team to gain insights into the population of people they support. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the data captured within the system has allowed Southampton to identify those unpaid carers who may be at risk, or who may need additional support due to social isolation or issues with shopping for essential items.

Moving forward, they’ll be able to use Atmolytics to get an overview of the local carers population needs and outcomes, and be able to identify carers who may be at risk. This will support them in adopting a proactive and preventative approach to ensuring each carer’s situation is sustainable.