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Access to social care information for health at the touch of a button

A case study with Nottinghamshire County Council.

By sharing basic social care information digitally, this project aimed to streamline the information sharing process between social care and clinical staff, saving staff time and improving patient care.

Page contents

Background

Historically, clinical staff at Doncaster Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals (DBTH) have had no direct access to social care information collected by Nottinghamshire County Council (NCC) social care staff. Instead, clinical staff were required to phone social care staff for information on patient care packages, which was time-consuming and inefficient for both parties. This was particularly noticeable in evenings and weekends, when social care staff were often unavailable. Consequently, without access to up-to-date care package information to ensure patients’ safety at home, DBTH experienced delayed patient discharges and unnecessary additional hospital admissions.

What the project involved

NCC had already developed technology to provide access to social care information, and this had been deployed to another hospital in the Nottinghamshire area, Kings Mill Hospital. The DBHT project adopted and scaled up the same model; this provided a strong foundation to demonstrate the functionality of a system-to-system messaging function.

 

The portal enables basic information stored on Mosaic (the NCC Social Care database) to be shared with emergency department and integrated discharge team staff at the hospitals. Patients can be identified on the portal via their name or NHS number, which is linked to social care information, including safeguarding and potential autism and dementia concerns. It also has a locator service to identify the responsible local authority when not Nottinghamshire.

Out-of-hours portal usage of 16%

An estimated 90 hours of clinical hours saved

5% greater efficiency for social care

Benefits of social care information sharing project

Clinical staff benefit from:

  • social care information available 24/7, even when social care staff are unavailable - DBTH staff can access information directly from within their own system and are no longer required to manually request information from social care colleagues
  • an increase in employee job satisfaction where staff feel they have access to more of the information they need to support their clinical decisions
  • no specific training or separate login requirement
  • the ability to check the responsible local authority quickly, preventing incorrect referrals

It helps Nottinghamshire County Council meet their health and social care ICT integration commitments.

Social care staff save time by not having to supply basic information to health services.

Patients:

  • potentially avoid hospital admission and further deterioration
  • return home as soon as possible once safe discharge has been identified with existing providers and care packages
  • experience greater satisfaction with the service, demonstrated by real case studies

Lessons learned so far

Nottinghamshire County Council have learned that:

 

  • collaborative working between NCC Social Care and DBTH has been key to successful delivery
  • information sharing is based on direct care and the best interests of the individuals rather than consent (simplifying their information governance)
  • it's important to involve the right staff to promote the system - change champions have been used to support its roll-out

Download the full case study

Last edited: 26 September 2022 3:45 pm