Cheshire West & Chester council select PROTOCOL
To meet the needs of its forward thinking social care transformation agenda, which aims to achieve collaborative working across adults’ and children’s services, Cheshire West and Chester Council has chosen both Liquidlogic’s PROTOCOL Integrated Children’s System (ICS) and Integrated Adults’ System (IAS). The ICS and IAS systems will be fully integrated with each other, allowing the sharing of relevant data between the council’s children and adult teams and providing practitioners with a more complete picture of a child’s or adults’ care requirements.
Cheshire West and Chester chose Liquidlogic’s systems after a comprehensive competitive tender process through the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), which attracted all major suppliers. Liquidlogic scored highly on all scenarios tested, proving to be one of the most user-friendly systems available. The council was equally impressed by Liquidlogic’s track record in delivering children’s and adults’ solutions to more than 50 councils in England, with many councils implementing PROTOCOL IAS after successfully using PROTOCOL ICS.
With improved usability and much less repetitive data entry the working life of the social worker will be greatly improved. Both systems will be integrated with the finance functionality for health and social care services, and the council has the option to integrate with additional health and social care agencies to achieve wide-reaching collaborative working.
Councillor Brenda Dowding, Executive Member Adult Social Care, said, “The new system will enable care staff in both services to spend more time with vulnerable adults and children. This modern system will enable us to implement the recommendations of Professor Munro’s report and the principles of Personalisation for Adults.”
“Liquidlogic’s track record means that they understand that children’s and adults’ services teams have different requirements. This has enabled us to adapt each system accordingly and has meant we have avoided having to adopt a ‘one size fits all’ approach, which would have been restrictive and not very user-friendly for our practitioners.”
Councillor Dowding, concluded, “In addition to this, we were assured of interoperability between the systems and able to take advantage of the associated economies of having a single supplier. With far greater usability and collaborative working, our practitioners will be able to deliver even better care to vulnerable adults and children.”
Denise Harrison, Director and founder of Liquidlogic, added: “Cheshire West and Chester’s forward thinking decision to acquire and integrate ICS and IAS shows that its transformation agenda is set to bring the council to the forefront of best practice. With its commitment to collaborative working between children’s and adults’ health and social care services, Cheshire West and Chester is focussing on delivering the best level of care possible - rather than simply on meeting legislative requirements.”
Cheshire West & Chester Council plans to go live with both PROTOCOL systems by summer 2011.