County Durham Care & Support & OneTouch

County Durham Care and Support (CDCS) is a local government organisation in County Durham, that is responsible for providing social care services to vulnerable people of all ages. Their services include support for adults, with learning disabilities, elderly individuals, children and families and people with mental health needs.

CDCS works to help people live as independently as possible and maintain their quality of life, while also providing necessary support and assistance. The council aimed to deploy a single digital care management system (CMS) to improve all aspects of care delivery across all services throughout to help achieve their ultimate goal, which is to promote the well-being and independence of residents in the County Durham area.

Typically, a good CMS platform reduces time spent on administration, thereby allowing more time to be spent caring and improving the quality of the care delivered. It should also enable improvements to medications management, office administration and local environmental impact.

Affie Alldred, Project Lead: “The project was never sold to CDCDS on the basis of reducing cost. It was always on the basis of improving the service. It was always about how we will improve.”

The software selection process involved demonstrations and comparisons of several of the largest CMS suppliers in the UK. After months of detailed consultation, the OneTouch platform was chosen for, amongst other considerations, its adaptability to the different care settings available in County Durham, its easy customisation for numerous workforce responsibilities, and the ability to cater for all parts of the care provision services within an agreed budget.

A plan was formed to roll out the OneTouch platform across the Durham social care organisation, with training to be carried out by OneTouch trainers, on-site IT system experts and ‘train the trainer’ principles. In total, 131 administration staff and 440 care staff were trained to use OneTouch to support their delivery of care services. This also involved setting up 440 mobile devices on which to use the system.

Health Provider Service within County Care and Support: “OneTouch is now used every day by every single member of staff within the service. So that's from admin, support and recovery workers, operations, supervisors, and managers.”