Bradford Metropolitan District Council has introduced
mobile technology in an effort to increase the time its 75 social
workers spend helping vulnerable children and adults.
Social workers are using laptops or tablet PCs to access and
amend citizens' personal details without returning to the
office.
Previously, they were often unable to carry out some aspects of
their jobs when they were out of the office because they could not
access information held on the central database.
Bradford Council used systems integrator Esteem Software to
develop its social care applications, which were supplied by Anite,
for mobile working. They allow social workers to access e-mails,
reports and case notes from the central Anite database remotely via
a 3G network.
The project has also enabled Bradford Council to comply with the
government target to introduce electronic social care records for
vulnerable children. All 150-plus local authorities that provide
social services have to comply with a series of Whitehall
regulations to store social care data electronically.
The council and Esteem used a Citrix Secure Gateway to enable
access to the social care applications. The devices, which are
equipped with Sierra wireless cards, can alternatively access the
applications through the council's virtual private network. Citrix
Metaframe XPe software is used to manage the social care
applications centrally.
Ian Sampson, e-care manager at the council, said, "This flexible
way of working enables us to deploy a mobility application that is
both cost effective and efficient for us to manage. A
"fter trialling a number of applications when we were looking to
achieve remote working capabilities for our social services team,
we were relieved to find one that worked for us."
The council said the number of social workers using the mobile
applications will be expanded once it has finished its research
into the effectiveness of staff spending more time with vulnerable
children and adults.
Sampson said, "We are now seeing improvements in the level of
service that we can offer citizens and can visit homes and access
real-time information that makes a massive difference.
"It means we can be much more responsive to customer needs and
offer our employees a more flexible way of working."
More information
www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/socialcare/integratedchildrenssystem/technical/cpr/
www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/_files/Phasing%20out%20child%20protection%20register%20report.pdf
www.esteem.co.uk/customers/case-studies.php4
Link to
Bradford Council
Comment on this article:
computer.weekly@rbi.co.uk