New ways of working

What we did

Southend Borough Council has introduced a number of changes to make its business processes more efficient. It updated its Electronic Record for Social Care, introducing electronic documentation so that practitioners no longer need to complete paper records and then enter the same information onto the data base. This has been accompanied by the introduction of mobile working as part of a New Ways of Working corporate project aimed at reducing the amount of council office space. Social workers have been provided with lap tops and other equipment which means that all the paperwork required for SDS and all other business processes can now be accessed remotely and practitioners can complete forms when they are with a service user. After extensive testing, the council has also implemented its own points based RAS. This has been incorporated into the electronic documentation, which means that the RAS 'score' for the indicative allocation is automatically calculated once the assessment is completed.

Why we did it

For the council as a whole, New Ways of Working has been about streamlining working practices across the board and reducing use of expensive office space. For adult social care the major driver has been to improve the SDS customer journey. Improvements for the social work teams were intended to speed up the process of assessment, reduce waiting lists, and help meet the target for undertaking reviews.

Outcome

Implementation of the new ways of working has helped to speed up the SDS process by reducing the time taken to carry out assessments. Having all records on the electronic system has also brought the benefit of easier access to records for quality assurance, so problems can be spotted earlier and addressed, including additional training where required. The RAS has helped social workers to produce a genuine outcomes focused process.

Contact details

Kim Thomson, Project Manager Smarter Ways of Working, Southend-on-Sea Borough Council, Kim.Thompson@southend.gov.uk, Tel: 01702 215480