The South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland is working with CareLineLive, a leading provider of home care management software, to maximise resources and improve workplace efficiency.

The results of the partnership, which began in 2021, reveal significant improvements across the board. Over a period of eight months, an additional 3,919 hours of capacity were created (a £73k value) with no additional recruitment or agency staff hires. Admin time for rota management was reduced from 17 to 12 hours per week – with a capacity gain of 30% – and 87% of service users reported better service delivery.

The South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust is responsible for providing health and social care for 354,000 people with an annual budget of approximately £600 million. Its service includes providing over 30,000 domiciliary care visits a week via a team of some 600+ carers and additional office-based staff.

Prior to partnering with CareLineLive, the Trust’s home care service was managed with traditional tools like spreadsheets and printed paper-based rotas delivered by post. The untimeliness of information flows resulted in patients being discharged from hospital but no carer attending a visit due to the rota not arriving in time. Rounds allocating carers to service users were inefficient and care staff were frequently interrupted outside work hours to agree rosters and pass on vital client care information. 

Alistair Fitzsimons, Senior Manager Community Social Care, said: “Not only have we seen phenomenal improvements to our capacity and efficiency but the standard of care has increased. We are now better able to tailor the care services people need and deliver it at a suitable time for them. If someone needs more time we can easily flex the system to deliver that without the need to make cascading changes in what was a complex paper based system.

Josh Hough, Founder and Managing Director at CareLineLive, added: “CareLineLive has helped the Trust give carers back valuable time, empowering them to spend more time caring for their clients. The results of the partnership are a true testament to how technology can revolutionise the home care management sector. We look forward to continuing to support the digital transformation of the SE Trust and the results to come.”