Kent CC is to overhaul its online self assessment system for social services so that it can deal with "complex" cases, council officials said on 20 September 2005.
The pioneering assessment e-service, which has been running as a pilot for the past year, has so far successfully allowed people with "moderate" needs – such as those requiring occupational therapy – to see whether they qualify for social services support, according to the council. Speaking to Government Computing News, Melanie Hayes, project manager for the council's web development team, said that a new IT platform is to be introduced in order to allow people with more complex requirements to carry out self assessments online.
It is hoped that following the IT overhaul people with a range of social care needs, such as someone requiring a combination of mental healthcare, housing support and drug therapy, would be able to carry out self assessments.
So far, the service – which the council says is the first of its kind in the UK – is only available to people over the age of 18, but with further development it could also cover children's services.
"This is part of what we are doing to rebrand the service and we also hope to be able to make the system more flexible so that we can update and add different categories," said Hayes.
Hayes said that one of the main aims is to allow the self assessment service to "interface" with Swift, the council's social care computer system supplied by IT firm Anite.
"It's important for us to be able to build links with Swift and we're going to turn our attention to this first before we look at other uses," Hayes said.
The existing service, which is linked to the council's contact centre, allows carers and relatives to fill out an assessment form online on behalf of someone else. Once a claimant is assessed as eligible for support they are given the option to receive direct payments for social services.
The council aims to have a new system running by the end of the year, although it could be ready by November.
Quelle: KableNET, 21.09.2005
