Kent County Council has worked with IT supplier Anite to
develop an online self-assessment application for citizens seeking
council care services.
The council has contributed more than £100,000 towards
developing the application, which enables people to go online to
find out whether they are entitled to social care.
Anite is integrating the self-assessment system into its own
back-office social care records suite. It will then sell the
application as part of its Adult Services Client Information System
- also known as Swift.
KentCounty Council is talking with Anite about whether it will
benefit financially from sales of the package. "It is under
discussion; there is no agreement in place," a spokeswoman
said.
Each time a client uses the online self-assessment tool it saves
the council a 30-minute phone call with a social worker and
provides a decision on entitlement to care within seconds of the
form being completed.
For the application's launch, Kent has made self-assessment
available to the 12,000 people with moderate care needs who rely on
the council for support.
The next step is to make online self-assessment possible for all
25,000 people who use its adult social care services.
Melanie Hayes, Kent's project manager for the adult social
services web development team, said, "We are looking into creating
a self-assessment for people with complex needs. That will be a
challenging project. Then we will do a self-assessment purely for
people who need occupational therapy."
The council will set targets for take-up of the new application
later this month as part of its four-year services plan. The
application has been integrated with the council's back-office
repository of social care records.