Issue details

Background:
The Adults Health and Wellbeing Service (AHWb) face a number of challenges in the current economic climate arising from demand due to an aging population, fragmented services and an increased cost of delivering health and social care. As our local Place Plan documents we have a compelling vision where ‘care and support will be tailored to community strengths to help Doncaster residents to maximise their independence, health and wellbeing’. Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care recently stated in his speech about his vision for technology in the NHS:
“…We need technology that makes life easier for hard-working and often over-stretched staff. We need technology that can run basic tasks and processes more efficiently. This will save…money and free up staff time – money and time that can be better used to provide great care…”
This funding is being requested to ensure Adult Social Care (ASC) and Support achieves both their service objectives as well as delivery of the AHWb Transformation plan in relation to the implementation of the MOSAIC case management system. Backfill arrangements for the Subject Matter Expert (SME) and funding four trainers are now required to ensure AHWb service are
actively engaged in data migration, User Acceptance Testing (UAT), sign off of processes as well as providing an effective link between the programme team, as they have extensive working knowledge of current systems and practice.
The AHWb service have already allocated and delivered resources to the programme so far, including identifying 25 super users who will work with the programme in the run up to and post go live of the system, with no backfill arrangements in place thus delivering resources “in kind.” Although this commitment has not been quantified, its value in terms of time and resource committed is substantial and demonstrates the AHWb’s commitment and willingness to actively engage in the development and implementation of an effective case management system.
Current situation:
We are now in the implementation stage of the case management system. Our approach to implementation has been revised and a decision was made by the DIPs Sponsoring Board to
implement the Best Practice Configuration (BPC). This is the solution as purchased which meets all statutory and regulatory requirements. It is acknowledged that BPC may not include the requirements for all services to support improved ways of working. The priority criteria for managing changes needed as agreed by the Sponsoring Board are:
• Replace functionality currently in core legacy systems
• Replace functionality that is partially in core legacy systems and partly outside
The criteria is based upon an understanding that the timescales to implementation are extremely ambitious. Longer term (post go-live) there will be a full programme of work to implement additional functionality/changes that are not achievable for the current go-live dates. This approach will:
• Enable the business areas to move onto the system quicker as implementation time is reduced due to minimum changes.
• Provide an opportunity to start using the system ensuring changes are needed.
In order to have a consistent approach to change management and implementation, it has become apparent there is a significant resource expectation from the AHWb service, at a point when service demand levels remain high and the service is expected to deliver efficiencies and achieve significant savings targets.
Having worked closely with the programme team, the resources needed to ensure the service is actively engaged in the implementation of the system is a combination of subject matter expert, technical, training, testing, migration and reporting expertise which will be drawn from relatively small teams with high workload. The majority of this requirement will be met “in kind” with no backfill arrangements to be made. However, there are key roles where the expectation is that individual officers will play a critical function in the implementation phase, and where more formal arrangements will need to be in place to cover their business as usual activity.
Having worked closely with the DIP’s programme team this decision has been taken to ensure the service is actively engaged in the implementation of the system is a combination of subject matter expert, technical, training, testing, migration and reporting expertise which will be drawn from relatively small teams with high workload. The majority of this requirement will be met “in kind” with no backfill arrangements to be made. However, there are 5 key roles where the expectation those individual officers will play a critical role in the implementation phase, and where more formal arrangements will need to be in place to cover their business as usual activity.
These are:
Subject Matter Expert
1 FTE commitment for 12 months
Backfill costs £29,498 per annum (Grade 7 – Top of scale)
Technical, testing and training leads.
2 FTE commitment for 10 months to cover testing, training and development of Standard Operating Procedures
Backfill costs £24,581 x 2 = £49,163 (Grade 7 – Top of scale)
Recruitment of 2 external trainers for 45 days @ £475 per day equals £42,750
Total costs: £121,411 (This excludes the additional “in kind” commitment costs, estimated to be £224K).
In addition to this resource commitment, AHWb has already allocated an additional 450 officer hours to the current BPC workshops, although this figure excludes the finance workshops, so the actual commitment is higher.
Whilst it is anticipated levels of activity will taper as we approach the MOSAIC Go-Live, the current systems will need to be supported up to this point as they deliver statutory services that will require business continuity throughout. No backfill arrangements will severely limit our ability to support current systems and ensure that, at the point of Go-Live, there is no disruption to services.