Improving outcomes for people with learning disabilities using the digital care planning system

A feature for every need

We were based on paper in the very beginning, but we wanted to go digital and that was the driving factor. The implementation process for us was very straightforward because Eugene had worked with it before and had a lot of positive feedback to share but regardless of this, we still received all the support we needed before we made our decision because we had some really useful discussions with the team at PCS to discuss what we wanted to get out of the products.  

We said from the beginning that we needed an all-encompassing product that could help us support people and with the digital care planning system, that is exactly what we got.  

We use it for everything – it helps us with our care plans, our risk assessments, including report writing and incident reporting, so it really helps us to cover all of our bases when it comes to supporting those we care for.  

We found the activity icons to be particularly useful for us because they cover a wide range of activities, and it really helps us to prompt what our staff can do with individuals, and then because the process of inputting notes is so smooth that just feeds right through to the care notes as an activity.  

Embracing digital solutions to manage and plan care has led to better outcomes 

The entire system has helped us to improve our quality of care and has really led to improved outcomes; working towards greater outcomes has been one of our biggest focuses because it means we can help the people who need it most to get the most out of life – and, where possible, to live their lives on their terms.  

By embracing digital solutions and using Person Centred Software’s system, we are able to set short term goals and outcomes. For people with learning disabilities, being able to set short term goals like this is really important because it helps them to focus on their day-to-day activities. 

We are able to have open and honest dialogues about goals, even to the point where one of our individuals was visited by a social worker and she was eager to talk about her short-term goals and long-term goals; it was really nice to see that she was able to refer back to past records and show the progress she has been making.  

In many ways that has been one of the biggest impacts of the system – it's helped us to empower the people with care for to have more agency in their day-to-day lives. 

Essential for compliance

I absolutely love the assessment tools because in terms of compliance, it’s been essential for us. For example, the accessible standards have been really important for us given that we work with people with learning disabilities and autism. The assessments have become even more detailed and it’s helped us learn from incidents where some services don’t do the initial assessment themselves and then make the necessary referrals.  

All of this comes back to the fact that having all of that information to hand is a game changer. So, for example, recently we had a request to send through risk assessment documents. All we had to do was go into the system, download it and send them – it was that simple. We were even able to slightly update it again before we sent them, so they were as close to real-time in terms of documentation as you can realistically get. 

“The software is accessible and easy to use, and staff are able to access everything they need on handheld devices which never go wrong and never let us down.” 

Overall, we’ve been very happy with the digital care planning system, and it’s helped us to streamline our records and given us the tools we need to be able to support who we care for in the community.  

The work that our team do is very challenging but enormously rewarding, especially when the system gives us the time that would have been spent on documentation and administrative work to really be with the people we care for – to empower them to live their lives and achieve their goals.