Re-design of the SDS process

What we did

Derbyshire County Council has undertaken a fundamental review of its SDS process and tools. The review began by bringing key people together to participate in a 'brown paper exercise' to map the existing customer journey. Two reference groups were set up, one made up of assessment staff, the other a sub-group of the existing Stakeholder Engagement Board, a reference group bringing together a cross section of people and groups who have experienced the council's adult social care services Feedback from each group was given equal importance in shaping the approach. The intention was to identify and remove unnecessary work stages, reduce duplication of information, reduce the number of processes or hand-offs, improve the quality of documentation (determined by community social work teams and people assisted by the department) and reduce the number and size of documents used. A SDS development and governance team was also established which held short weekly meetings, bringing together colleagues from across the adult social care department (e.g. community social work, finance, IT). Work was undertaken with the council's IT providers (one for assessment, the other for client recording) to improve the system while still retaining the basic architecture of the RAS calculation. A series of meetings were held with operational managers to identify issues and priorities for staff development around SDS confidence and competence which subsequently informed a series of local workshops.

Why we did it

Prior to April 2011 experience of the SDS pathway and documentation had been confined to a relatively small group of both staff and clients who were part of the initial pilot phase. Although the council had co-produced its approach and documentation during the pilot phase, as SDS was rolled out more widely, feedback from the wider group of operational staff highlighted problems with the process. The department was reorganised in April 2011. Substantial savings to management costs were made to protect frontline services and 21 local generic community social work teams created. The system of care management ceased and investment made in social work qualification training for care managers as part of the transition. The main concerns were the perceived complexity of the approach and the user friendliness of the documents. Practitioners found the process difficult to follow and in turn managers were not confident in signing off budgets without assessment and support plans being completed to a certain level of quality.

Outcome

Feedback received from the various groups and workshops has resulted in major redesign of workflows and documentation. The FACE RAS is now integrated into the core assessment tool, forming a single document which can capture the information required to generate both the budget and the support plan. This went live at the beginning of April 2013, and although still in the early stages initial feedback has been positive. Workflows have been simplified and the integrity of the person centred assessment and personalised support planning strengthened through professional practice development work. This should further enhance the reliability of Derbyshire's RAS through improvements in the quality and consistency of recording and accuracy of each person's assessment. In addition, as these changes are delivered through an established quality assurance and governance approach to SDS they should be sustainable.

Contact details

Dominic Sullivan
Group Manager Fieldwork Services
Derbyshire County Council
Dominic.Sullivan@derbyshire.gov.uk
Tel: 01629 531311