Derbyshire County Council delivers health and social care services to communities across Derbyshire. The council supports vulnerable individuals through children's services, adult social care, youth justice, and early years provision.

Adult Social Care Services include both direct care and extra care to help people stay independent and delay future care needs. Children's Services cover child protection, fostering, adoption, and support for children in care.

With so many different services across age groups and needs, Derbyshire needed digital solutions that would reduce admin, improve consistency, and let care workers focus on supporting people instead of managing paperwork.

Like many local authorities delivering diverse services across multiple teams, Derbyshire faced operational challenges that were limiting efficiency and putting service quality at risk. The council needed to address these issues to better support residents and care providers across the county.

Inconsistent Processes Affecting Service Delivery

Running multiple services across different age groups, Derbyshire found that teams were using the same systems in completely different ways. This created time-consuming workarounds, reduced the hours available for direct client support, and made it hard to get a clear view of the market.

Corrina Bailey, Group Manager for Contracting and Compliance at Derbyshire County Council, explains: "We discovered that we were really data rich. However, the challenge was providing consistent information to both our internal teams and external providers in a way that supported strategic planning."

When team leaders were off sick or on leave, colleagues covering services didn't always know how data was being used. Processes took longer than they should, putting service quality at risk.

Specific Brokerage Challenges

Before digital transformation, Derbyshire's brokerage team had real operational barriers. Dianne Shaw, Senior Broker in the Brokerage Team at Derbyshire County Council, describes what it was like: "We were using spreadsheets which could get corrupted, and manual forms sent via email which could be insecure. Everything was siloed."

Tracking self-funded packages was particularly difficult. The team couldn't see when packages were closing down or where clients had moved. This created gaps in market intelligence and made it harder to support residents or give providers the data they needed for business planning.

Derbyshire put in place a digital transformation strategy across all their services. The council introduced integrated systems for brokerage, case management, community care scheduling, early years provision, and youth justice.

The transformation focused on creating smooth workflows between systems, getting rid of manual processes, and building a single source of truth for client information. This meant teams could work consistently whilst still having the flexibility needed for different services.

Bringing in a digital brokerage system was a big change for Derbyshire. Corrina explains how they approached it: "We spent time working with our providers so that they knew how the system would work. We are approximately 12 months down the road and we are in a position where we're able to provide information to external providers where they can actually begin to build their business models around the information that we're supplying."

The council connected their brokerage system directly to their case management platform. This automated workflow gets rid of manual data entry and keeps information secure. Dianne explains how it works: "Requesting a brokerage via Mosaic is very simple. We've just got an extra workflow step which creates another workflow on Mosaic which then, when completed, directly puts that into the Adam system and we can pick it up on the other side. Some information pulls through automatically, other information we can manually change which makes it a lot more personalised to the customer."

This integration keeps everything GDPR compliant because all information stays in one secure system. Bailey notes: "One of the key benefits to members of the public is that information is not being shared across systems. It remains within the one system, so we know that we are fully compliant to GDPR and information is kept safe and secure."

Key Achievements:

• Eliminated manual spreadsheets and insecure email processes
• Achieved full GDPR compliance for information sharing within a single system
• Consolidated multiple siloed systems into one integrated platform
• Enabled provider changes within two weeks for resident choice and control
• Removed data entry delays with automated workflows between systems
• Developed self-funder tracking capability from zero visibility to full tracking

Improved Brokerage Efficiency

About 12 months after implementation, Derbyshire has completely changed how brokerage works. The council got rid of insecure email forms and unreliable spreadsheets. They replaced them with secure, integrated workflows that work faster, especially during busy periods.

Dianne describes what's changed: "We've been able to work more efficiently as a team. We aren't waiting to put information on spreadsheets which could be corrupted. We aren't doing manual forms which go out on emails which could be insecure. Everything's secure and safe and the workflows have improved timewise as a direct result."

Enhanced Market Intelligence

Going digital showed Derbyshire just how much data they had, and it's transformed how they understand the local social care market. Corrina explains the value: "We were able to provide information for our internal teams and that includes the number of packages that are being sourced on average per month per district. It also includes information about the speed of package pickup which, at times of intense system pressure, is hugely helpful for those individuals who are looking for packages of care support."

This intelligence helps care providers too, not just the council. The council can now share market data with external providers to support their business planning and development. The insights have proven invaluable for navigating a volatile social care market and making evidence-based commissioning decisions.

Solving Self-Funder Tracking

Derbyshire built new workflows to tackle the self-funded package challenge. Corrina explains: "We support self-funders to find packages of care and support. We did originally have some challenges as we were unable to identify where those packages were being closed down. However, what we have done is developed a new workflow to enable us to find where those packages have gone to and to be able to track them."

This means the council can keep track of the whole market and continue supporting residents who fund their own care, even when the council isn't directly funding it.

Improvements for Urgent Care Needs

Working with their technology partner, Corrina developed specific workflows for urgent needs: "I've worked closely with the customer success manager to be able to develop a workflow that enables Derbyshire to find packages of short-term care and support with very short timeframes to enable people living in the community to receive care and support at the soonest possible point."

This has been critical during busy periods. It lets the council respond quickly to changing care needs and keep people supported in the community, preventing unnecessary hospital admissions or discharge delays.

Derbyshire’s digital transformation didn’t stop at brokerage. By streamlining scheduling and care coordination, the council has created a more connected experience for residents and providers alike. Teams now work from a single source of truth, reducing duplication and freeing up time for frontline care.

Digital Scheduling Impact on Community Care

Derbyshire's community care teams now schedule visits consistently across different services whilst keeping the flexibility they need. Domiciliary care is fast-paced with regular changes, and the new systems handle this well.

Care workers get real-time alerts about schedule changes or changing care needs through their mobile apps. This means they're always informed, wherever they're working. The council has also standardised processes across teams. Expense reimbursement is now automated and consistent, so team leaders know all employees are treated fairly and don't waste time on manual calculations.

For more detail on how Derbyshire optimises rotas and scheduling with Access CM, read our in-depth MaxCare case study.

Creating One View Across All Services

Derbyshire now has a secure portal that connects social care with GP, hospital, and outpatient care records. This gives a complete view of care history, so staff can see everything they need about someone's care, no matter which service they need.

The system covers Mental Health, Children's Services, and Adult Social Care. When someone needs support from multiple teams, it's easy to share records with everyone involved. This stops data being duplicated and makes sure everyone has current information.

Chris Newton, Head of Digital and Data Services at Derbyshire County Council, reflects: "It's been a longstanding relationship with the company in terms of its products. Derbyshire has been a customer and user of the Synergy system for a number of years. We helped develop some of the functionality for school admissions quite early on and became an early adopter of the Mosaic system, and the experience has been positive."

Enhancing Digital Transformation

As an early adopter of Mosaic Professional Services, the council now have the confidence to unify teams and create and implement processes they couldn't do before. This ongoing support has been instrumental in helping Derbyshire maximise the value of their Mosaic implementation and adapt the system to their evolving needs across services.

Improvements in Children's and Youth Services

Children's Services now work better with organisations across the county through improved co-production. All payments to children's services and early years providers are captured in the system and processed automatically, improving continuity and cutting admin time.

Applications for Early Years childcare, Free School Meals, and school admissions are much simpler for parents now. They can start applications at home through the online portal, cutting delays and making it easier to engage. Youth justice services use Access Core+ for case management, helping young people toward positive education and employment outcomes.

1. Streamlined Operations and One Place for Information
Staff across all Derbyshire services save significant time. Some admin tasks are fully automated, others are much simpler. All the information they need day-to-day is in one place, so they don't need multiple processes and there's no risk of duplicate records.

This has completely changed how teams work. No team uses solutions differently from another. Everyone follows the same approaches for short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals. Having everything integrated connects different care settings into one complete view that supports personalised, proactive care planning.

2. Better Reporting and Data-Led Decisions
Going digital across Derbyshire's services has completely changed reporting. All data stays secure whilst letting teams make better data-led decisions for planning current and future services.

For senior management, this means better resource allocation and making budgets go further to meet everyone's needs across the county. The market intelligence helps strategic commissioning decisions with evidence-based insights that weren't available before.

3. More Confidence, Engagement, and Independence for Residents
Residents are more confident using digital services to access support and improve their quality of life. Streamlined applications for Early Years services, school admissions, and Free School Meals let parents start processes at home through the online portal, cutting delays and making it easier to engage.

Fewer delays across all services mean residents are more engaged and independent whilst still getting the care and support they need, even when needs change.

Derbyshire County Council reflects: "Our experience with The Access Group has been really positive. We've got access to numerous Access products and have great contact with account management to help support our short, medium, and long-term strategies."

By going digital and creating integrated workflows, Derbyshire follows the principles in the Putting People at the Heart of Care White Paper and the Children's Social Care Reform White Paper. The focus on choice, control, and personalised care through efficient digital systems reflects the policy emphasis on person-centred support.

The brokerage work particularly supports market shaping and provider engagement, which are key parts of effective commissioning for sustainable care markets.

Derbyshire continues advancing their digital transformation with several developments in progress. This includes moving applications to the cloud and transitioning to SaaS delivery for key systems.

Future plans include NHS number verification to streamline checking records, making sure care needs are addressed, commissioned, and delivered efficiently. The council is also looking at better reporting on discharge-to-assess processes to reduce hospital discharge delays and create care packages that help people stay independent and remain in their homes longer.

Bailey summarises her view: "I would recommend Adam social care to another local authority. What the system has done is given us vast data and insights about what is quite a volatile social care market at present."

Derbyshire County Council's experience shows how integrated digital solutions across the care continuum can deliver real improvements in efficiency, market intelligence, and service quality. From brokerage and case management to early years provision and youth justice, the council has built consistency, person-centred support, and operational excellence.

Discover how Access Local Government software can support similar transformations. Contact us to explore how we can help your digital transformation journey.