Esprit are delighted to announce that on Friday 27th January, ShareCare: Direct was upgraded successfully from version 0.5 to version 1.0 in the East Cheshire Common Assessment Framework for Adults (CAF) Partnership area.

The upgrade has allowed the East Cheshire Common Assessment Framework for Adults (CAF) Partnership to offer a wide range of new functionally and features throughout ShareCare: Direct.

Several areas of ShareCare: Direct have been updated and adapted particularly in the ‘My Choice’ area, which allows users to submit self-assessments and make an enquiry direct to the council social care department. Version 1.0 will give users the ability to ‘access’ their social care records in real time and provide full delegated access to other trusted individuals to act on the users behalf throughout the site – a first in a local authority in England.

For a comprehensive description of the ShareCare: Direct product please contact us on:

Telephone: 01332 412200

Email:         info@esprit-is.com

Thank you to the Esprit upgrade team for all their hard-work to ensure that the upgrade was rapidly implemented and a great success.

Over the course of the last year Esprit staff have raised £535 for the ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ Foundation as part of Esprit’s ’10 years of Innovation’ celebrations.

‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ aim to make magical memories for children with life threatening diseases and their family to remember for a lifetime.

The presentation was made by Ben Mutton to corporate fundraiser for the East Midlands Sarah Madden on the 18th January.

Esprit would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has donated over the course of the last year, every pound really does make a difference to this fantastic cause.

If you would like to know more about When You Wish upon a Star please visit : http://www.whenyouwishuponastar.org.uk/

Following on from the Connecting for Health accreditation in December 2011, Esprit are pleased to announce that in partnership with Cheshire East Council and IBM, the ShareCare system went live with full NHS Personal Demographic Service (PDS) integration on the 3rd January 2012.

Esprit are pleased to announce that ShareCare has become the first social care application to achieve accreditation for integration with the NHS Personal Demographic Service (PDS).

In order to ensure that systems work correctly and safely with the NHS Care Records Service, NHS Connecting for Health (NHS CfH) operate a robust assurance regime known as the ‘Common Assurance Process’ – or CAP.

The sign off for this process known as DevMac (Development Milestone Achievement) was achieved by Esprit on the 5th December 2011.

Esprit is pleased to announce the availability of the ShareCare: Direct Information Gateway.

ShareCare: Direct  has been specifically designed to support the personalisation of Adult Social Care by:

• Enabling citizens to easily locate up to date information and advice;
• Empowering them to make independent decisions and choices about their own care needs
• Supporting them in managing their own care provision.

• Flexible information and advice hierarchy  – delivering targeted, easy to maintain advice and assistance information;
• Comprehensive and extensible resource directory – supporting a local marketplace of service providers and services, with self submission and information management;
• Local ‘MyCare’ environment – enabling  users to access their own assessments, support plans, demographics and other personal data securely;
• Self assessment support – providing  a range of easy to construct, on screen feedback, calculation and data capture services;
• Interactive communication – with service user ratings and comments; social networking integration (Facebook, Twitter etc), forums and consultations.
• Service integration  – supporting interactive discussion between service users and professionals and on demand data exchange with case management and other systems
• Secure access – enabling secure access to a users own assessments

ShareCare: Direct are currently working with the Cheshire East Council Partnership.

For more information on ShareCare: Direct or to register for a free demonstration please:

Call:  01332 412200

Email: info@esprit-is.com

Esprit realise that for most local authorities managing Special Educational Needs (SEN) assessments and reviews and maintaining an efficient service, is a time consuming and costly process.

ShareCare: SEN has been specifically designed to mitigate these issues. It is an easy to use, wholly web based solution, supporting comprehensive SEN case management functionality, while additionally delivering time and cost savings through a low cost software model.

ShareCare: SEN is available 24/7/365. It can be securely accessed over the Internet from any location e.g. office, home or school environment, and is specifically designed to support the full SEN business process: Referral, Assessment, Statement of Special Educational Need, Provision and subsequent monitoring through regular Progress Reviews and Management Reporting.

The SEN solution can support students at any age, or level of special educational need and can integrate with other elements of the ShareCare: Child product suite – e.g. e-CAF, ICS and Concern Tracking.

To request more information or to arrange a product demonstration at your convenience please contact:

01332 412200 or please click here

Between March 21^st and April 8th 2011 staff from Esprit and Connecting for Health (CfH) will be carrying out Witness Testing of ShareCare’s integration with the PDS at our Derby offices. The Witness Test is a key stage in the CfH Common Assurance Process acting as a gateway into User Acceptance Testing and live deployment.

Esprit’s partner in the SCPEA process is East Cheshire Council where a full go live of the PDS enabled release of ShareCare is planned for Summer 2011.

ShareCare: eCAF adheres to national standards, but benefits from being easily adaptable to meet local management processes, data capture and reporting requirements.

ShareCare: SEN is a modern, fully featured product, specifically designed to improve local services and lower costs. The ShareCare: SEN system supports multi-agency data recording, and enables SEN services to operate in association with other local children’s services.

Both solutions are entirely web based operating as Software as a Service application i.e. requiring no on site hardware installation, and is low cost and rapid to implement.

To request more information or a free demonstration of either product please click here

Personalisation

The Personalisation agenda is advancing but there appears to be inconsistency in how councils are meeting targets and a lack of clear understanding amongst the public as to what it all really means.

The idea that social care is provided in a way that facilitates more choice and greater control for those who receive support is one that is generally supported by the professionals but in practice it means a huge cultural shift.

The practicalities of implementation and education are complex and there is a danger that these have been underestimated which will hamper the smooth implementation of the new system.

The aim of Personalisation is for the social care users to have control  over how money allocated to their care is spent, allowing them to hold their own budget and self direct where the money is spent. A key aspect is that the user can also have the option to carry out their own self assessment and assess their own support and care needs before deciding how to spend their budget to meet these needs.

Those councils that are delivering have strategies in place and are providing information and advice about the choices available and have engaged key partners to deliver innovative services.  However, just six months ago a survey found that four out of ten councils had missed the government’s personalisation targets.

There is no agreed model for delivery and therefore different solutions are developing. A new market place of providers is being established that delivers resource or service directories to allow users to browse for the support that they need; but where is the regulation to monitor the standards and how are the vulnerable being protected?

Good partnerships will be essential and best practice solutions need to be shared as they develop.

It is thought that a new breed of ‘brokers’ will emerge, these may be established organisations such as Age Concern for example or new operations.  The relationships between these brokers and social workers are not fully understood and social workers are feeling threatened that it could lead to job losses.

There are concerns as to how the roll-out will be affected by the era of austerity that we now find ourselves operating in and there is a danger that the public will see the changes as a move designed to save costs rather than a sea change in policy.

Improved training and a greater focus on education should help counteract this and support the introduction of what should be a fairer, smarter and more effective system of social and health care.

Martyn Cockram

For More Information about Martyn Cockram or ViewPoints please visit : http://espritnewsandviews.com/viewpoints/

Esprit will be exhibiting at the Mobile Point of Care Conference on Tuesday 23rd November 2010 at the British Medical Association in London.

If you are attending the event please come and visit the Esprit stand in the main conference hall.

For more information about the conference programme or to book your place at the event please visit: http://www.tracline.co.uk/conference/