A recent survey by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) found that councils across the country are facing a sharp rise in demand for care services of all types from mental health to domestic abuse and elderly care.
Meanwhile, anecdotal evidence from the adult social care network suggests that there are often delays and backlogs when it comes to carrying out the care needs assessments that act as a gateway to receiving support.
75% of the survey respondents said they were dealing with more people being discharged from hospital and asking for help from their local council. And 55% reported a rise of more than 10% in requests following discharge over the six months prior to the survey.
It’s worth remembering that these extra demands are being placed on an already stretched system that is coming to grips with the combined effects of Brexit and Covid on the labour force, against the back-drop of a lack of Government-led reform of the sector with a revamped funding strategy.
Extra Demand Could Be Here To Stay
There seems little prospect of the demand for services reducing in the foreseeable future – or of the often promised structural reforms to the social care market. In any case, reform on the scale needed is likely to be a ten year project preceded by extensive consultation. Help is needed today.
So for everyone involved in commissioning or delivering care services the priority is to make the best use of the resources and tools that are already available.
As we’ve said before, care brokerage mechanisms are essentially a valve that controls how quickly cases flow from an identified need to somebody receiving the required service. Inefficient brokerage also swallows experienced resources that could be deployed elsewhere in the service provision where it could have greater impact.
And brokerage is one part of the process that can definitely be streamlined – no matter what type of service is being overloaded.
eBrokerage by UDMS is a unique, secure, cloud-based brokerage system for any type of care service. It eliminates all of the emails, phone calls and spreadsheets that currently gum up the works and suck up the time of brokerage teams.
The highly flexible eBrokerage solution can be implemented within a few weeks and is easy to procure through the G-Cloud 12 framework, via Ulysses eBrokerage Cloud Software.