Carers Trust Crossroads West Wales - Case Study

Carers Trust is a UK-wide charity that specifically focuses on unpaid carers. Their purpose is to transform lives, ensuring that the efforts of these unpaid carers are recognised, that they as people are valued, and that they have the support, resources, or even advice they need to be able to balance caring with a life of their own.

As part of this mission, Carers Trust have partnerships and network branches in local areas for a more tailored approach to delivering their support. Carers Trust Crossroads West Wales (CTCWW) are one of these network groups, representing Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion.

The challenge for Carers Trust Crossroads West Wales, as with many organisations providing direct care or support services for the care sector, was a need to digitise and move on from paper-based records, and a better system for handling and accessing service user information.

Prior to using ACP, Care Support Workers had to enter the service user's home to access essential documents such as care plans, risk assessments, and medication forms – not convenient and not always appropriate.

Carers Trust Crossroads West Wales sought out Access Care Planning for this digital overhaul, and in their own words they’ve seen costs reduced and compliance with GDPR achieved.

Below we break down the seven areas where ACP has helped optimise and upgrade the work Carers Trust Crossroads West Wales do:

1. Going Paperless

A reduced need for postage, photocopying, and physical file storage has helped bring costs down immediately

2. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Despite the UK’s exit from the European Union, most employment and trade still requires compliance with GDPR rules based on engagement with the EU.

With electronic records for rotas and service user details, CTCWW meets these compliance expectations regarding data security, information access, and user management.

3. Sign In/Out

Access Care Planning provides a real-time view of the attendance of Care Support Workers. This enabled Carers Trust Crossroads West Wales to monitor staff sign-ins and outs, and to record data on visits, trends, and associated care quality.

The staff monitoring element also helps prompt management for follow-ups to ensure safety (a duty of care) and to ensure that in their absence work still gets completed by others.

4. Incident Reporting

The real-time support also facilitates immediate incident reporting. This cuts out the delays that paper-based record keeping and logs have, thus allowing staff and management and even other clinical services to respond quickly.

5. Daily Recording

ACP supports the daily recording of visits and reports associated to these visits, which has helped Carers Trust Crossroads West Wales eliminate the delays associated with posting or hand-delivering paper records. This enhanced efficiency, reduced operational costs, and allowed for prompt and accurate verification of information and solidified the quality of the care recordings.

6. Information Access

For coordinating support for unpaid carers, ACP has proven essential in time-sensitive situations. On one occasion, it allowed Carers Trust to compile and submit all necessary documentation to the Court of Protection within the required deadline, demonstrating the system’s reliability and efficiency regards its ability to access and print information.

7. Service User Information

We touched upon this as one of the primary challenges facing CTCWW, but with the addition of Access Care Planning the organisation now has information on service users available 24 hours in advance of meeting them, allowing staff to review key details before their visit.

This access supports better preparation, enhances service quality, and promotes a more efficient and person-centred approach to the care they require. It also allows CSWs to access records of previous visits, and more knowledge will help with better care quality.

If you would like to find out more, why not visit our dedicated Access Care Planning page.

Alternatively, read our primer on care planning and what you need to know, or take a look at our other care management software.