Swansea City Council has implemented a system that
enables its social workers to see whether other parts of the public
sector have assessed their clients' needs.
Social workers and healthcare practitioners will be able to see
whether someone has already been assessed, but the assessments will
not be shared unless the people who create them give their
permission.
The Paris system from software supplier in4tek was chosen to
comply with the Welsh Assembly Government's demand for a Unified
Assessment Process (UAP) in social care.
The UAP is the Welsh equivalent of England's Single Assessment
Process for children. Swansea is the first local authority in Wales
to go live with a system that enables both health and social care
practitioners to discover whether their clients have already had
their needs assessed by someone else.
Neither the devolved government in Wales nor Swansea City
Council knew how many duplicate assessments were being carried out
before Paris was launched.
Since the system went live in June this year, 750 assessments
have been completed within the council's catchment area.
The council has 300 practitioners using the system. A further
4,000 community and ward staff employed by the local Bro Morgannwg
NHS Trust also use Paris.
The electronic assessment system was piloted with Bro
Morgannwg's Learning Disability Service before being rolled out to
Swansea social services.
The implementation in Swansea has so far cost £1.35m, of which
£850,000 has come from the Welsh Assembly Government. The remaining
£500,000 was from the council's own funds.
Swansea plans to enhance its Paris system to comply with extra
targets set by the devolved government. The council will begin by
implementing risk management into its assessment process.
By the end of the year Paris will be extended to cover children
and mentally ill elderly people. In 2007, it will be linked to
Swansea's financial management system for social care. Council
officers will use a part of Paris called Paris Finance to integrate
the two systems.
The council wants to introduce electronic social care records
based on Paris. It aims to extend the scope of its business
intelligence tool Business Objects to include Paris.
The UAP system will be deployed to some social workers via
mobile devices.