Council To Launch Online Self-Assessment System

Kent County Council has worked with IT supplier Anite to develop an online self-assessment application for citizens seeking council care services.

The council has contributed more than £100,000 towards developing the application, which enables people to go online to find out whether they are entitled to social care.
Anite is integrating the self-assessment system into its own back-office social care records suite. It will then sell the application as part of its Adult Services Client Information System – also known as Swift.

KentCounty Council is talking with Anite about whether it will benefit financially from sales of the package. “It is under discussion; there is no agreement in place,” a spokeswoman said.

Each time a client uses the online self-assessment tool it saves the council a 30-minute phone call with a social worker and provides a decision on entitlement to care within seconds of the form being completed.

For the application’s launch, Kent has made self-assessment available to the 12,000 people with moderate care needs who rely on the council for support. The next step is to make online self-assessment possible for all 25,000 people who use its adult social care services.

Melanie Hayes, Kent’s project manager for the adult social services web development team, said, “We are looking into creating a self-assessment for people with complex needs. That will be a challenging project. Then we will do a self-assessment purely for people who need occupational therapy.”

The council will set targets for take-up of the new application later this month as part of its four-year services plan. The application has been integrated with the council’s back-office repository of social care records.