The CEO of the CQC recently called for a system-wide response to mitigate a ‘tsunami of unmet need’ this winter. The comments came on the back of the CQC publishing the latest State of Care Report.
The backdrop to the comment is a familiar one. Services are being put under pressure by rising demand, increasing covid rates and staff shortages – which will be made worse if all care staff have to be fully vaccinated.
The system-wide response should have the overriding objective of ensuring that ‘people are cared for in the most appropriate place.’ And for many older people currently in hospital, the most appropriate place is back at home rather than occupying a hospital bed.
The CQC recognised (rightly) that home care services are a highly cost-efficient way to meet rising demand. Effective and readily-available domiciliary care reduces pressure on expensive hospital beds, helps people recover more quickly, prevents many people needing hospital care in the first place and saves the overall health and care budget billions.
Fragmented Systems Aren’t Agile
The system-wide response called for by the CQC will inevitably be hindered if the system is fragmented. If interactions rely on phone calls and emails, and if tracking is carried out on spreadsheets, any response will inevitably be much less agile. In human terms, this means more people not being cared for in the most appropriate place and some not being cared for at all.
In five years time (or perhaps less) it’s impossible to conceive of a scenario where care brokerage is still being carried out on fragmented and labour-intensive systems (as much of it is today).
Surely by then, every area will be able to broker care packages efficiently in a secure cloud-based environment, where information on need and communications with providers is all updated in real time, and shared across all of the brokerage team. This will greatly speed up the process of ensuring that everyone is being cared for in the most appropriate place.
If then, why not now?
The eBrokerage by UDMS solution is a cloud-based platform where a range of care services can be brokered efficiently and securely.
All types of care brokerage can take place in a secure marketplace that doesn’t rely on emails, phone calls and spreadsheets. This not only simplifies life for care brokerage teams, it’s also easier for care providers to manage at a time when they need as much help as we can give them. It speeds up the process of matching the right care service to the right person.
The highly flexible eBrokerage by UDMS solution can be implemented within a few weeks and is easy to procure through the G-Cloud 12 framework, via Ulysses eBrokerage Cloud Software.