1 Objectives of this report

1.1 The aim of this document is to provide a progress report on the implementation of the SWIFT Social Care System as the replacement for existing systems in the Social Services Department. This progress report was requested at the Social Care Policy Review Committee on 23 January 2004. Sub heading or text

1.2 The report will:

1.2.1 Give background to the SWIFT project

1.2.2 Describe the contents of each phase

1.2.3 Report on progress so far

1.2.4 Outline plans for next phases

1.2.5 Identify benefits

2 Summary

2.1 Key drivers for the SWIFT project are Corporate IT Strategy, the Government's Modernisation Agenda and the requirement to provide a Social Care system for the Children and Families sector where recording has been largely paper based. The SWIFT system (supplied by Anite) was procured following full evaluation and procurement process.

2.2 SWIFT is being implemented in Phases to ensure that training, security and implementation can be effectively managed and to ensure that "Lessons Learned" from one phase can be applied to the next.

2.3 Phases 1 and 2.1 are completed successfully so that the full Social Services client index is now held and updated in SWIFT and the core functionality for Children and Families is also held there. This includes Contacts, Referrals, Children Looked After records and Essential Information Records (EIR).

2.4 The SWIFT system provides for Children and Families sector far greater accessibility to records and the ability to view these from any site where the Hampshire County Council IT2000 setup is available. Time previously spent retrieving paper files will be saved. Data quality is expected to improve.

2.5 Phase 2.2 is due for implementation by 20 July 2004 and will enable Children and Families Social Workers to raise Packages of Care (order services) based on the Care Plan.

2.6 Phase 3.0 is scheduled for the end of January and will replace all functions in existing systems for Adults and Older Persons and Mental Health services. All existing systems will be decommissioned before end March 2005.

3 Reasons

3.1 The SWIFT Project is a key factor for Social Services Department in meeting the Corporate Aim (5) to improve our services. SWIFT provides a standard tool for recording information about client's needs and supports practitioners in provision of service. There is also a link with the Corporate Aim (4) to build strong and safe communities. SWIFT makes information about vulnerable children and adults appropriately available to teams (including Out of Hours services) in a standard format enabling informed decision making.

4 Background and Key Drivers for the procurement of a Social Care System

4.1 The Hampshire County Council Corporate IT Strategy requires that all existing systems be decommissioned by the mainframe shutdown deadline of end March 2005. Assessment and Care Management System (ACMS) and Social Services System (SSS), the existing integrated Social Care Systems, will fall into this category and need to be replaced by systems that are in line with the IT strategy.

4.2 ACMS and SSS have long provided the Adults and Older Persons sectors with a comprehensive Social Care System. While some recording of Children and Families data has been possible in these systems to allow statutory reporting and tracking, the Children and Families sector has not yet benefited from comprehensive systems and relies largely on paper based recording.

4.3 The replacement of existing systems for Adults and Older Persons and the implementation of an integrated Social Care System to support Children and Families will allow the Department to make the first step towards the requirement for a full Electronic Social Care Record (ESCR) by 2005. This requirement is part of the e-Government and Modernisation Agenda as set out by the Department of Health.

4.4 The evaluation and procurement procedure undertaken by Hampshire County Council Social Services aimed to identify systems that would best help meet the above requirements and the SWIFT system supplied by Anite was selected as a result. The evaluation included presentations from Anite and the other short-listed contractor to the Social Care Policy Review Committee. Contracts were signed in August 2002.

5 The Phased SWIFT Implementation

5.1 The implementation of SWIFT across all Social Services Sectors is a sizable undertaking and to ensure that training and technical project streams can be managed effectively, the implementation has been phased.

5.1.1 Phase 1.0 was successfully implemented at the beginning of July 2003. This involved moving the Client Index to SWIFT. The Client Index records the basic Person Details of people known to Social Services in the capacity of Client, Provider, Social Services Employee, or other professional. In Phase 1.0 these records were moved from ACMS to SWIFT.

5.1.2 Phase 2.1 was successfully implemented in February 2004. This phase covers the core areas of work for Children and Families. Just as in the past ACMS has supported the care management processes for Adults and Older Persons, so SWIFT Phase 2.1 supports processes for Children and Families. Referrals, initial and core assessments, information about Children Looked After, Child Protection information and reviews will all be handled in SWIFT.

5.1.3 At Phase 2.1 implementation 3.3 million items of data were migrated to SWIFT and the transfer success rate was 99.8%, probably the highest ever achieved for a SWIFT migration. The number of users after 2.1 implementation rose from 420 to approximately 1,350. The additional modules and greater number of users has not affected system performance which continues to be very good. Response times are good and there has been no SWIFT related unplanned down-time.

6 Progress so far

6.1 Data mapping and migration

6.1.1 Before each Phase of implementation a number of workshops is run with staff to understand how their business processes work currently and how they will work with the SWIFT system. The business processes are modelled and this shows the project team how required data items will need to be entered to the system and where. This mapping exercise has to take into account the data held in existing systems which needs to be mapped to SWIFT.

6.1.2 Social Services has been fortunate in the range and sophistication of its in-house developed systems. The mapping of data held in such comprehensive systems is a sizable task and for Phase 2.1 the amount of time required was under-estimated causing delays. Lessons have been learned from this exercise and approaches have been reviewed for the next major exercise in Phase 3.0.

6.1.3 While the time taken to map Phase 2.1 has been an issue, the rigour and intensity of the approach has had a benefit in that a test exercise demonstrated that key statistical returns the County Council is required to make to the Department of Health could be produced from the Children and Families modules. This has been an issue for other Authorities implementing SWIFT.

6.2 Change management

6.2.1 Each phase of the project represents a technical challenge, but it is important to remember that it also represents a major change for our system users. A key strand of the project has been a thorough approach to the management of change. Phases are preceded by a series of Roadshows explaining the plans and how staff will be affected by them. This also gives staff the opportunity to feed back any issues or questions they may have.

6.3 Training

6.3.1 Over 500 people were trained for Phase 1.0 and this training was well received. A full programme of training for Phase 2.1 started at the end of October 2003 and continues after implementation. To the end of March 2,400 person days training will have been delivered for Phase 2.1. The training has required considerable commitment from staff in the Children and Families sector and they have met the challenge with the support of Team and Service Managers.

6.3.2 Planning is under way for the training of Phases 2.2 and 3.0. The scale and range of training for Phase 3.0 is such that options for prioritisation of training before and after implementation will need to be explored.

6.4 Lessons learned

6.4.1 The nature of the SWIFT project means that multiple phases need to be progressed in parallel. The project team is currently closing off the post implementation phase for 2.1 while preparing for phases 2.2 and 3.0. This makes it particularly important that Lessons Learned from any phase are quickly identified, documented and applied to the next phases. In this way the Project Teams have been able to apply learning and improve approaches to mapping and migration, training and communication within and outside the project.

7 Future Phases

7.1 Phase 2.2

Preparation for Phase 2.2 is under way. This phase will enable Social Workers in the Children and Families Sector to raise provisions (orders for care services) in SWIFT following care planning. These provisions will be copied to the County Council's financial system (SAP) where a budget commitment will be created. It is scheduled to complete by 20 July 2004.

Phase 2.2 completes the cycle of activity from contact through assessment to creation of a care package and review. This is a key benefit, providing an integrated system for Children and Families sector and marks a major change for system users.

7.2 Phase 3.0

7.2.1 This Phase is the biggest so far and will replace the current Social Care Systems for Adults and Older Persons and Mental Health Services, (ACM and SSS) and needs to be ready for implementation by December 2004. To avoid disruption for system users leading up to and during Christmas period which is particularly sensitive for these sectors, the implementation will take place at the end of January.

7.2.2 Originally it was intended that a project working with Health Agency Partners and Unitary Authorities would procure a joint system to support Mental Health services. Following the definition of the National Programme for IT for the Health sector, this project has been closed so that regional plans for system development can be introduced. As an interim solution the SWIFT project will replace all functionality in ACM and SSS which currently supports Mental Health Services and this will be implemented as part of Phase 3.0.

8 Benefits

8.1 Benefits for the Children and Families Sector

There was an outstanding requirement in the sector for the benefits that an integrated system would provide. While key details of Children and Families records have been entered to ACM and SSS, much of the record exists in a paper file.

8.1.1 The SWIFT system will allow Social Workers to immediately access information about their clients from anywhere in the County where the IT2000 setup is available . They will be able to record directly onto the system, view the accuracy of records and send and receive messages about cases without duplication. They will also be able to share up-to-date information easily with Out-of-Hours services. Assessments and Children Looked After (CLA) documents can be printed and there will be a reduction in duplication of recording. These benefits will be available to staff, from whatever discipline, working in integrated children's teams in the future.

8.1.2 Among the quantified benefits identified there will be a saving in staff time spent accessing manual files per annum. The value of this time saving is estimated at approximately £146,000. It is also thought that there will be an hour per week of Team Manager time saved in researching cases and travelling to attend case meetings this is calculated to have a value of about £69,000 per annum. These time savings all more time to be devoted to other pressing areas of work.

8.1.3 During training Social Workers reported that they found the Children Looked After Module easy to use and they felt that the ability to print EIR (Essential Information Record) forms was a great benefit. All of these records had previously been written by hand with key data items then being entered separately to SSS.

8.1.4 The exploration of business processes required to produce the data models for working with SWIFT has enabled the Project Team and system users to explore, standardise and streamline business processes across the County and give clear guidelines for roles and responsibilities for staff working with SWIFT.

8.2 Other benefits

8.2.1 By the end of 2004 the SWIFT project will have replaced ACM and SSS for Adults and Older persons and enable the Department to meet the deadline for closure of the mainframe. Not only is SWIFT a replacement project, it will enable Social Services to meet some of the technical requirements for working together with partner agencies and take the first step towards the development of a full Electronic Social Care Record.

8.2.2 There are expected benefits for Data Quality. The implementation of phases so far has shown that the SWIFT system makes transparent data quality issues that may have been previously masked by the approach to recording in paper systems, or legacy systems. As part of post-implementation large-scaled data cleansing exercises have been undertaken. A range of tools are now available to project teams, support teams and system users to allow the monitoring and correction of data.

8.2.3 The Development Partnership approach has enabled Hampshire to work with Anite to introduce some key developments to the SWIFT system. An example is the improved validation of CLA records. The project teams are currently working on a development which will enable effective monitoring in SWIFT of block contract usage.

9 Future strategy

9.1 SWIFT provides an excellent platform to further apply technology to improve service delivery and meet e-Government targets. Development areas that are currently being assessed include:-

9.1.1 A full electronic social care record so completely removing the need for paper files.

9.1.2 Mobile flexible working enabling social workers to spend more time in contact with service users and less travelling to and form the office.

9.1.3 Integrate children's records and information sharing required by the Children Bill.

9.1.4 Expansion of SS Direct Service Centre to provide a faster service at point of contact and reduce pressure on scarce social worker resources.

These proposals will be presented over the coming year.

10 Recommendation

It is recommended that this report be noted and that a further progress report be brought to Social Care Policy Review Committee after completion of Phase 3.0

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - Background Documents

The Following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list excludes:

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt of confidential information as defined in the Act.

None