One of the biggest changes in IT undertaken by adult social care in Liverpool is being implemented on Tuesday 11 November.
‘Liquidlogic’ has been five years in development and sees five separate computer systems combined into one, integrating the department’s information and financial systems.
It will enable better organisation of care documents for the 15,000 people who receive council support every year, and a simpler process for the 600 council staff who will use it.
The £1.5 million project is cutting bureaucracy massively by reducing the number of forms used across community and hospital teams down from 960 versions to around 30. Funding, which could only be used for IT projects, was provided by the Department of Health.
Information from the old systems will be electronically transferred and 12,000 paper files have also been scanned in, meaning social workers who staff Careline, the contact centre for social care inquiries, will have access to information at the click of a mouse, rather than having to refer them on to other teams.
Councillor Roz Gladden, Deputy Mayor and Cabinet member for adult social care and health, said: “This new system is helping totally transform the way we undertake all the tasks needed to assess, plan, review, deliver and monitor care and support for the most vulnerable people in the city.
“It will reduce the amount of time staff have to spend inputting information as they will only deal with one system instead of five, and can spend more time working with people who need support and their families planning their care. It also makes it much easier for us to obtain or run a whole host of reports to help us anticipate the demands on the service.
“Although this is a system that is used by a number of other public bodies, we have tailored it very much to the city’s needs and made it bespoke to Liverpool.”
Hundreds of social care providers commissioned by the council such as home care agencies and residential/nursing homes will be able to self-manage their contract with the council by uploading invoices and downloading statements, reducing the time taken to process claims.
In future, it is hoped Liquidlogic will also be accessed by other health professionals such as GPs and hospitals, enabling them to have an overview of the care and support received by individuals.