David Collins, Product Manager at Person Centred Software
In 2022, NHS England launched the ‘Health and social care integration: joining up care for people, places and populations’ [i]policy, setting out measures to make integrated health and social care a universal reality for everyone across England regardless of their condition and where they live.
According to Workforce Intelligence,[ii] workers with non-EU nationality filled over 143,000 UK care sector posts in 2021/2022, while EU nationality workers filled over 103,000 positions. Furthermore, the NHS has estimated up to 1 in every 10 people in the UK has some degree of dyslexia.
Naturally, this would suggest that it’s paramount that care providers search for innovative ways to make the care sector more inclusive and accessible to all workers regardless of their English language skills or potential learning difficulties.
Going Digital
As part of the government’s efforts to improve health and social care for all, they passed the Health and Care Act 2022, which launched new legislative measures to make it easier for health and care organisations to deliver joined-up care for people relying on multiple services. The proposal was to implement integrated care systems (ICSs) and aim to deliver better, more integrated care for people, enhancing the flow of information between professionals.
The NHS Transformation Directorate is providing £25 million in funding to ICSs throughout 2022/2023. The funding is intended to assist care providers in adopting digital technology to improve the quality and safety of care, helping to make people’s lives happier and more fulfilled.
ICSs will assist care providers in implementing a Digital Social Care Record (digital care planning system) that will allow them to obtain accurate information instantly, enabling them to provide better-integrated care.
One solution that makes the care sector more inclusive and accessible to carer workers is Person Centred Software’s digital care planning system (a Digital Social Care Record), helping to improve the quality of care for all.
Person Centred Software’s Digital Care System’s icon-driven interface can be used by everyone, even if:
- English is not your first language
- You have dyslexia
- You haven’t used a smartphone before
After all, everyone works differently, so a digital care planning system that everyone can use and understand must be available to bring the best out of every individual working in a care setting.
Person-centred care
To make recording care notes quick and seamless for care workers, icons are central to Person Centred Software’s Care App’s design, resulting in more care being recorded than ever and more time spent with residents.
Icon-driven care notes are more person-centred because they:
- Save care worker’s time, giving them more time to spend with residents
- Increase the number of care notes recorded
- Improve the accuracy of care notes
- Reduce the time it takes to physically transcribe care notes, enabling care teams to record information at the point of care whilst reducing the risk of errors
csomething that is impossible with paper or many other systems.
Working in a person-centred way involves working in partnership with the individual to plan for their care and support. Person Centred Software’s Digital Care System was developed to meet this requirement and is tailored to everyone’s needs.
For example, if a carer was to bathe a resident, a bath icon is listed on the dashboard, which pre-populates a care note allowing the carer to add more detail if they wish. The carer can then input how long the bath took and what type of bath the resident had using the icons, in addition to what help was required and whether the resident was happy or unhappy.
Suppose the carer wanted to report something unusual, like an accident, incident or h/o; a dropdown would appear for the carer to either fill in manually or record the notes using the speech-to-text feature. Using the speech-to-text feature, care workers can accurately convert their voice into text without typing on the handset.
‘’Ultimately, our primary goal was to create a universally understandable icon set that was recognisable to users from all backgrounds, experiences and languages. This is why we wanted to ensure if English wasn’t a carer’s first language, they could click on an icon to write the care notes for them – ensuring the evidence of care is recorded at a much faster rate and is universally understood to all its users.’’
[i] www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-and-social-care-integration-joining-up-care-for-people-places-and-populations
[ii] www.skillsforcare.org.uk/adult-social-care-workforce-data/Workforce-intelligence/publications/Topics/Workforce-nationality.aspx