Care Minister praises technology during the pandemic as she discusses digitisation of social care

Published in The Carer Digital (Page 15), Home Care Insight

A virtual meeting between the Minister of State for Care and industry professionals has shone a light on the impact of technology and highlighted its benefits in providing safer, more personalised, and forward-thinking adult social care services. 

Helen Whately, the Minister of State for Care, joined representatives from NHSX and Person Centred Software in a discussion chaired by Ernie Graham, CEO of Graham Care Group, which focused on the digitisation of social care, looking at the importance of two-way interoperability between the health and social care sectors. 

Acknowledging that the sector has come a long way since the onset of COVID-19, with the pandemic highlighting the value of real-time data and accelerating the adoption of technology over the last year, participants discussed the benefits technology brings to everyone involved in a person's care journey.  

Touching upon the technology’s time-saving benefits to staff who, thanks to technology, are being freed of administrative tasks such as paperwork that can often get in the way of providing person-centred, high-quality care, the group also discussed the health benefits to residents, who are experiencing fewer falls, UTIs and hospital admissions as a direct result. 

Person Centred Software, providers of the most widely-used digital care system in the UK, also took the opportunity to update Helen on a revolutionary new integration, which can provide care homes with easy, secure and direct access to a resident's GP records. By integrating Person Centred Software's digital care management system with NHS Digital’s GP Connect and National Record Locator (NRL) services, registered nurses at care homes can now access information held by GPs at a much greater speed, enabling better medical decisions. As well as enabling carers to provide better care which, in turn, improves resident outcomes, the integration can deliver two-way interoperability between health and social care services, ensuring a smoother journey for residents transitioning between these two settings. 

During the discussion, Person Centred Software revealed that there are currently 95 care homes using GP Connect and 47 care homes using National Records Locator.  

Andrew Coles, head of product management at Person Centred Software, who was part of the discussion said: “On the call it was amazing to hear how the sharing of information has helped care providers, home managers and GPs delivering benefits that enable businesses to grow, free up time for carers, reduce pressure on home managers, support GPs and other health services to deliver a more efficient service and most of all to improve the lives of those receiving care. 

Person Centred Software and hundreds of our customers have already started their ‘Joined Up Care’ journey and the opportunity to speak directly to the Minister of Social Care about our programme of work and to get the support from the government and NHS was a privilege. We look forward to their on-going support for future initiatives to benefit Health and Social Care services through digital transformation.” 

Following the discussion, Minister for Care Helen Whately said: 

“People are at the heart of our care sector. Care staff want to be able to focus their time on caring for those they look after and technology can help make that happen. 
 
“Better use of technology frees up time and space for care staff to do what they do best. We are supporting the social care sector to make more use of technology and data to improve the quality of care and make social care a better place to work.”