Liverpool City Council plans to pilot an online children's services system next month to share information and cut down the time health and social workers spend on each case, a spokesperson told Government Computing News on 11 August 2003. The Children Community Index system has been designed to allow professionals to log onto a site and search for all the details held about a particular child. It will mean that professionals no longer have to spend time collating all the relevant information on a particular child and relying on paper records.
It is hoped the technology will allow healthcare staff, social workers and police to access shared data online, improving services that the city's children receive.
In a separate development, during July 2003, the council added a round the clock social care service to its Liverpool Direct call centre.
The integrated children's service will involve around 20 customer advisors and a number of social workers fielding a predicted 3,000 monthly enquiries from children, families and professionals.
The children's call centre will also have its own database holding information on all of the city's 108,000 children. As with the online children's services system, health visitors, social workers and police will be able to use the database to share any case work information.
Both the online and telephone services will have security in place to validate the identity of health professionals, the council has said.
Executive member for e-government Chris Newby, said: "Record keeping in social care has been notoriously complicated before, with complex paper records and limited IT. This new system will change all this, making life much easier for people working to protect our children and improve their lives, and, more importantly, provide better services for these children."
The council hopes to announce a chosen supplier for additional case management and document management systems in the next couple of weeks.
Quelle: Kablenet
