Independence Matters - Case Study

Independence Matters are a Norfolk-based support service for both learning disability support and dementia care support. Their services include support in both the home and the community with daytime support and some respite support in both residential homes and some home care.

Independence Matters are a non-profit company that work hard and aim to help empower individuals, families, and carers to live the life they choose whilst helping individuals maintain their independence.

To see how we have helped them from their point of view watch our case study video below and discover more about our CM software and the benefits it has to offer.

Prior to using The Access Group’s CM software, Independence Matters scheduled visits with both Excel Spreadsheets and paper rotas. Using a more manual service meant a lot of time was spent trying to arrange rotas and schedule visits as well as the different types of visits accordingly. It became very time consuming especially when changes to rotas needed to take place due to holidays or sickness.

Previously, their invoicing process used to also be a manual, time- consuming process. Finances used to be tracked and recorded from business support offices who would type them out and send them across to the relevant colleagues and clients. Due to the manual process both being complicated, with having a lack of information all in one place, and time consuming the risk of human error was more likely.

The need of a more sophisticated and automated software was needed to save time, reduce human error, and improve efficiency to allow more time to be spent on other tasks and more time spent with the clients and the delivery of the best quality care.

Independence Matters started to use our CM Software and a combination of solutions to overcome the challenges explained previously.

They started using CallConfirmLive as their scheduling and rostering system to be more time efficient with their planning of their services and provide a software that contained all the information in one place to help improve the invoicing process.

Using our additional mobile solutions allows all the information to be shown in a mobile app which support workers could have in the palm of their hands whenever and wherever. It updates any changes in real-time so support workers are always alerted to any changes in rotas that affect them.

Using our care management software has helped Independence Matters have all the information they need in one place. This has improved both the scheduling, planning, and rostering processes of the service.

Rotas are made in a lot less time and this has helped make the process of keeping rotas updated even easier. Identifying gaps in the rota due to sickness, emergencies, and annual leave can easily be highlighted.

Our software can then help identify the support workers who are nearby at those times to fill in those gaps instead of cancelling the visit altogether. This makes the scheduling process a lot easier and more efficient as the software can help think for you by offering the best solution at that specific time.

Through using the mobile monitoring solution, support workers can have all information in an app on their phone. This makes it easier for support workers to have updated and real-time rotas in the palm of their hands and be flagged on any changes or cancellations to visits each day.

Allowing support workers access to the app has reduced the amount of time wasted by support workers attending cancelled visits which they haven’t been notified about.

It also reduces time being wasted trying to contact every support worker when a change has been made to a rota regardless if it is big or small. Instead support workers can be flagged with notifications of all changes that affect them and their delivery of care.

One of the features on the app allows the arrival times and leaving times of each support worker to be recorded. This has helped Independence Matters improve the safety for their support workers as they can easily track when and where they are and if there’s any cause for concern due to late arrivals.

It also helps improve the efficiency of scheduling visits more by highlighting if a support worker is continuing to struggle getting to their next visit on time, due to external factors like traffic, more time can be given to allow support workers to get there and not rush and put themselves at risk. 

Another way Independence Matters has benefitted from using our CM software is how finances can be tracked more easily. All information regarding invoicing gets sent through automatically from the care management software. This generates more accurate invoices than their previous manual methods as all invoices are generated from what is inputted into the software.

Invoicing in this way also makes it easier for customers to track what care they have been charged for to ensure they are receiving the care that has been arranged, as well as who has delivered the care to ensure the care delivery has been consistent.

Using our CM’s scheduling, mobile monitoring and CMBI solutions Independence Matters are benefitting from a better use of staff time, a greater understanding of demand and capacity, and significant back-office efficiencies.