Our digitisation journey

Beccy Incledon-Blevin, Community Services Manager at Parkhaven Trust, tells us how their organisation has improved their service by embracing technology.

For me, digitisation began long before I worked in social care. I’ve always been someone who’s keen on using technology and helping others use it. Whether it was a grandparent, parent or friend who wanted a new laptop or phone, I was always on hand to help them get the tech they needed and help them get to grips with it.

This is likely why I was so keen to encourage digitisation at Parkhaven Trust. I’ve worked at Parkhaven since 2003, but it wasn’t until around six years ago, at a National Care Forum event, when we really began to embrace digital.

The event itself showcased some of the amazing technology available to the care sector and I was surprised by how many solutions were available to help us deliver better care and become more efficient as an organisation. This was the moment when I realised that Parkhaven could really benefit from digital transformation.

The first change we decided to move forward with was implementing a digital care record system across our locations. We wanted to make a complete shift away from our old paper-based system, enabling our staff to record and access the crucial details of those they support quickly and easily from a handheld device.

To facilitate this, I wanted to engage with people to understand how they’d receive a big change in their processes. I sent out questionnaires and began doing one-to-ones where I asked people about their perception of digital technology, how it could help us and what their feelings were about the potential for more digital solutions being used when delivering care.

In general, I found that the biggest complaint was age or duration of service – many of our staff are in an older demographic or have worked in a similar way for decades. They often stated they were ‘too old’ to work with technology, or believed they were simply not capable of using it due to lack of experience.

We were confident we could be overcome these concerns with encouragement and well-structured training. We wanted to ensure that people weren’t left with weeks or months of downtime between the learning and their transition as we believed this would be the most effective way to introduce people to digital working. We scheduled a full day of training for all our staff the day before the digital systems went live, giving them hands on experience using the system. The next day, the system went live and they had the knowledge they needed to use their devices fresh in their memories.

I was there to offer support on the first day and things went great. We had a handful of issues around forgotten passwords, but generally people took to their new devices and adapted to their new ways of working rapidly and without issue. This was a powerful reminder that no matter your working history or age, you’re just as capable of adapting to new tech as anyone else. I think it also served to give our staff the confidence they needed that they could tackle any future changes too.

The feedback we’ve had from residents and those drawing on our care has been brilliant. We’ve seen a noticeable improvement in the quality of our care because information is more readily available, meaning it can be personalised more easily. It’s also helped our staff save a considerable amount of time by lessening the administrative burden of working with paper, meaning that we can spend more time on care delivery.

Since then, we’ve moved on to embrace a variety of other digital technologies. We’ve installed acoustic monitoring in several of our homes which monitors the sounds of residents to detect any dangers or issues, such as falls, and alerts our staff. This removes the need for us to disturb them during the night by performing in-person checks and has reduced our instances of falls by 50%! We’ve also installed circadian lighting systems, which are intended to mimic natural light patterns for the wellness of our residents. Finally, we also recently adopted a pain assessment tool (PainChek), electronic Medication Administration Records (eMAR), digital rostering system and a digital pay system. We’re well on our way to being fully digital!

I’d like to conclude this piece by offering some final words to any social care providers out there who are considering pursuing a more digital way of working. First, I’d like to reassure you that no matter how difficult you believe it will be, you can do it. Many of our staff had been working without any digital solutions for over 40 years and are now completely sold on our new approach. Second, remember to consult your staff first to ensure they feel like they have some ownership of the process and it’s not a surprise. Finally, make sure you are monitoring how your systems are performing and what the outcome of the changes have been as this enables you to keep making improvements!

Make sure to visit our ‘Building digital confidence’ campaign landing page for more information on how you can become a more digitally confident social care provider.

Print this page