The opportunity
The Digitising Social Care initiative presents an opportunity for NHS ICBs to use additional funding to support the digital journey of Adult Social Care Providers.
Our 8-week Digital Maturity Diagnostic is the first step in getting your ICS ready to begin the digitisation journey. It can be easily procured for under £50k and be funded via the ‘Digitising Social Care’ funding. We focus on outcomes from the start, making it clear at the ICS and provider level how continued investment in digitisation will impact your citizens.
Our 6 month DSCR Procurement and Implementation Programme is the next step in getting your Care Provider Organisations funded, trained, and successfully using Digital Social Care Records across your ICS. This digital transformation programme can help your ICS through the challenges in Options Analysis, Project Management, Digital Procurement, Implementing at pace, and Stakeholder Management.
There is £25m of central funding being made available to ICSs. Ultimately, optimising the digital capability of social care will support each ICS to address its underlying issues, driving improvements to outcomes.
We have been working with an ICS with ~700 Adult Social Care Providers on their Digital Maturity Assessment and DiSC Funding roll-out. Completing the Maturity Assessment is helping to frame this funding’s roll-out with an understanding of where efforts need to be coordinated for investment in the IT services, Cyber Security, Digital Integration and process improvement associated with Digitising Social Care, and therefore improving the delivery of Social Care in their region.
Digital Maturity Assessment:
Our Digital Maturity Assessment provides ICSs with an objective understanding of where to put future efforts to improve the delivery of system objectives.
The maturity review explores two main questions:
1. Are the Digital & IT services fit for purpose?
2. Has the right level of maturity been achieved to meet the system needs?
Method
1. Prepare:
- Stakeholders are identified and briefed to ensure buy in
- The assessment is tailored to the needs of each individual ICS
- A representative sample of providers is decided upon considering differing Social Care landscapes in the ICS
2. Discover and Evaluate:
- The Digital and IT maturity self-assessment is completed by Registered Managers, and moderated in small groups
- Interviews are conducted with end-users, from management to frontline, to provide additional business context
3. Report
- Key areas for the ICS to focus on are identified
- We analyse the data and assign each sub-category a score
- Results are drafted into a report with prioritised recommendations

Procurement and Implementation Plan:
The Procurement and Implementation plan is designed to support your ICB in:
1. Stakeholder Management
2. Governance
3. Reporting
4. Procurement
5. Roll-out of this funding and technology
Method
- Analyse the options for technical suppliers, implementation plans, and financial allocation and with approval from key stakeholders, agree a preferred way forward that best meets the needs of the area
- Establish a robust programme including stakeholder engagement, governance and benefits / risks in-line with NHSE requirements
- Look at the system not the parts, giving you a system-wide view of digital maturity and implementation planning. We have expertise in navigating technology procurement and can support you to choose solutions that meet your requirements
- Take a benefits-led, whole programme approach, investing time in robust governance, stakeholder management and benefits realisation to achieve targets
- Understand the complexities of allocating funding, and can work with you to do this in a way that is fair, transparent and best contributes to overall health outcomes

- Adopt digital social care records (DSCR)
- Improve the efficiency of information sharing between health and social care providers within your ICS
- Roll-out and test care tech based on local needs to understand what works for individual ICSs considering possible barriers to adoption
- Help integrate ‘Virtual Hospitals’ and sensor-based falls prevention and detection into your ICS
- Improve transparency and accountability
- Expediate the rate of integrated working across care settings
- Increase Patient Satisfaction, Citizen Independence, and Time and Resource Efficiency (both Citizen and Staff) through the Social Care Digital Innovation Programme
- Increase digital literacy rates in both the staff and citizens of the ICS
- Ensure targets for Greener NHS Sustainability initiatives are being met
- Ensure citizens remain independent for as long as possible
- Improve the total quality of care
- Ensure Health Equality (D&I) is being practiced across your ICS
Our clients