Complete Care Business Management Software

Poor visibility

Care and support organisations face the challenge of not being able to see the right information at the right time. It can be easy to become data rich but information poor.

This issue has an impact in all areas of the business such as; care and support workers needing instant access to real-time information at the point of care, co-ordinators needing full visibility of requirements and how they can be met, through to full business insight to really see how the organisation is performing. This is further exacerbated when there are multiple sites involved.

Without the clarity of this vital detail it can not only cause inefficiency and obstruct maximising growth opportunity but also potentially increase risk.

Complex payroll and invoicing

These aspects of finance for the care and support sector are highly complex.

The different funding requirements for invoicing, complete with a variety of chargeable aspects, often make this process long, manual and prone to error. This results in increased time taken to amend invoices and potential delay with incoming revenue.

The variety and numerous calculations for payroll is equally as difficult. Consideration for different shift rates, multiple contract types, national minimum wage, travel reimbursements and last minute amends not only requires many hours of manual calculation but often leaves the employee with an incorrect payment that then needs further work to correct errors.

Both areas can be a time-drain which negatively impacts efficiency, revenues, staff satisfaction and retention in an already highly pressurised sector.

Recruitment and retention

For many reasons the social care sector has one of the highest levels of staff attrition in the UK, coupled with one of the highest number of open vacancies.

Finding and retaining care and support professionals in a timely manner is a constant challenge. Where the knock-on-effect is far wider reaching than repeating the recruitment processes.

Costly onboarding, shadowing and training need to be repeated regularly and the rebuilding of team unity begins again. Continuity with the same care and support workers interacting with clients is often interrupted, disrupting person centred care, especially for those that rely on seeing the same faces.

Reliance on multiple systems 

With an overall focus for digitisation, organisations may use multiple systems to record and manage information. These processes are not necessarily dedicated software, they could be paper based or spreadsheets. However, as each system manages different processes, this can cause many business issues.

With so many data silos it leads to inefficient processing, with duplicate records, a lack of visibility and no single source of truth. The knock-on-effects being; errors in processing, building a culture of reactivity, difficulty in proving compliance and, critically, potential risk with the people being cared for.

Auditability

Maintaining compliance with care quality regulatory bodies is a constant challenge for social care organisations. The inability to provide full auditable reports makes it harder for providers to evidence the quality and safety of their service.

To be able to prove compliance by records means the records need to be reliable. These are often split between multiple data silos; different software packages, possibly spreadsheets and paper based. This can lead to inconsistancies and at worst, potentially lost records.

In an already pressurised environment the added complexity of proving compliance can cause great stress and with potential large ramifications for the reputation of the organisation.

Ageing population and tight budgets

Shrinking budgets, tight margins and resources make it difficult for social care teams to deliver the same quantity and quality of service to all those receiving care and support.

Additionally, the UK has an ageing population, with more people living longer with complex conditions. By 2050, one in four people will be over the age of 65, which significantly increases the demand for care.

Changing processes can be problematic

In all areas of care and support there are processes that are integral to the many different roles.   These processes are possibly honed over a number of years and therefore there is familiarity and loyalty to these methods of working.

Manual processes can be paper based, use spreadsheets or both and whilst they may appear to be successful they often can cause problems for the wider business. The time taken to complete, duplication of records, loss of records, data not updated in all placed and the subsequent problems caused by a lack of visibility and data silos to name a few. 

Whilst these issues can often be seen and experienced by the wider business, the delicate nature of amending front-line processes is complicated and often avoided.