IT - Our work with health and social care

We are working with clinical teams to support better integration of Health and Social Care. Each organisation is required to keep relevant information about the care of every patient or client, and to share this securely with relevant other people involved in your care with patient consent.

partnership working - handshake

In addition, we have obligations to collect statistical data to support the process of being paid for the work we do, and to help longterm healthcare planning by government and other agencies. Unfortunately to meet this need, we mostly have different IT solutions.

There are 3 Local Authorities, and 4 NHS Foundation Trusts in Dorset. In our role supporting Dorset HealthCare in providing Community and Mental Health services across the county, we are working with frontline staff and their Social Care equivalents on the following practical problems;

  • Access to the relevant IT (so that roving staff can access relevant systems)
    • Health Staff working on Local Authority premises
    • Social Care staff working on NHS Premises
  • Access to clinical records where permission to share is given
    • Sharing caseloads (ie knowing that other people are involved in your care)
    • Accessing relevant casenotes (provided you have consented to sharing of information)

We are also working with the Acute hospitals to share relevant records, and to ensure that community teams are made aware as patients are admitted or discharged from hospital, so that we can stop and restart visits as required.

This work is important to help give patients seamless care.