Benefits of Digital Social Care Records (DSCR) for Home Care Agencies

The Department of Health & Social Care and NHS England (supported by the Care Quality Commission) are working together through the Digitising Social Care Programme, to encourage and support home care agencies to adopt Digital Social Care Records (DSCR), replacing traditional paper based records.

Approximately 1.8 million people are already using digital technologies to support their care and benefit from more choice, control and dignity in their lives. But many home care agencies are still using paper records and lagging far behind with dedicated software available in the homecare sector.

Here, we look at the benefits and challenges of adopting digital records and share useful resources and a Tagtronics success story.

Understanding Digital Social Care Records

DSCR allow care information received by an individual to be recorded digitally and shared securely in real-time with authorised care managers, caregivers, family members and friends of the care client.

When technology is embedded seamlessly into home care services, it can be transformative helping people to live happy, fulfilled lives in the comfort of their own homes, and improve the quality, safety and personalisation of care and support services.

The Benefits of DSCR for Home Care Agencies

• Improved Efficiency and Accuracy: Moving care plans from paper to electronic records means carers get information they need to respond quickly to patient’s needs, minimising safety risks and reducing time wasted on admin and reporting. Your busy care team could save up to 20 minutes of admin time a day. Paper records can get mislaid and are not easily updated which could result in errors, such as the wrong medication being given to patients.
• Enhanced Communication and Coordination: For a busy care manager, going digital can help make your life easier in many ways. Whether it’s using dedicated home care software that schedules staff rotas or mobile apps to keep family and friends up to date with their loved ones care. Missed care visits will be a thing of the past and timely messages can be sent to the right people with a single click.
• Better Compliance and Governance: Digital records allow home care agencies to easily comply with the CQC’s minimum requirements, answering the 5 fundamental key questions around quality and safety. Good digital social care records should be accurate, complete and up to date at all times. At inspection time, digital records can provide a transparent and detailed audit trail, speeding up time spent wading through paper records.
• Increased Security and Data Protection: A digital record system is more secure than a paper based system as only authorised carers and care managers can see a patient’s information. Access is via a secure login and the system is protected by regularly updated software to prevent cyber-attacks and hacking. Patient information is protected by the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements which all home care providers are legally required to meet.
• Support for Person-Centred Care: Digital records can help your home care agency to provide better and safer care that is truly person-centred. For example, by capturing real-time information for a care plan at the client’s home as it happens, rather than updating paperwork when the carer returns to the office. Using sensors and other smart monitoring technology to alert you when someone has had a fall or set reminders to give medication at the right time.

Overcoming Challenges and Barriers to Digital Adoption

Despite the many benefits of adopting a digital record system, you may have initial concerns, such as

• lack of knowledge and time to research software providers
• financial costs
• training and support needed for carers
• staff may be technophobes and resistant to change
• poor wi-fi or mobile signals in client’s homes
• processes that don’t mirror how carers like to work

Some digital adoption strategies for home care agencies to consider are:

• starting small and implementing a phased system
• providing comprehensive staff training programmes
• engaging users to test out the proposed system and gather feedback

Tagtronics Success Story

Clarendon Homecare are a domiciliary care company caring for elderly people in Surrey and West London since 1994.

Dave Vincent, General Manager says: “We used to use a paper system, where carers would handwrite daily notes and these would be regularly collected, reviewed and audited to identify problems. This took up a huge amount of time and by the time reports were collected and reviewed, any problems identified could be up to a month out of date. Senior carers would…pick up care notes and bring them back to the office. They’d then need to decipher…the care notes, which was even more time consuming due to poor handwriting.”

Clarendon started using Tagtronics home care software in 2008 for work rotas and care planning but now use our system for daily care notes and MAR sheets. Dave continues: “A digital system gives us the ability to respond in much shorter timeframes – instead of being a month behind, you can see things in real-time. If there is an issue, we can pick this up immediately and talk to carers or service users about any problems. It’s allowed our senior carers to focus on other activities, such as supervising carers, responding to service user reviews and improving our overall quality of care.”

Aligning with DHSC and NHS England’s Digital Social Care Goals

NHSX is providing funding of £8.2 million to support the digitisation of social care. Approximately, 30% of social care providers are partially digitised with 30% still using paper based systems.

The CQC fully support the NHSX proposals aiming to encourage 80% of their registered care providers to adopt DSCR by March 2024. They outline 4 guiding principles to support good outcomes for people who use digital record systems.

Care clients should expect digital records to be person-centred, available, secure and well-governed. It will become increasingly difficult for providers to maintain an outstanding or good rating without having an effective digital social care record solution in place.

Resources are available to help home care providers successfully adopt a digital records system and these links are a good starting point.

In summary, there are major benefits of DSCR for home care agencies. Adopting a digital records system aligns with the NHSX digital goals for adult social care and complies with CQC requirements.

Since 2000, Tagtronics have supported hundreds of home care agencies to begin and continue their journey towards digital transformation.

For a demo of our NHS Assured home care software, please call 01254 819205 or email howcanwehelp@tagtronics.co.uk.