The government has released a ‘What Good Looks Like’ (WGLL) guide for Local Authorities and care providers in England. This guide builds on the ‘People at the Heart of Care’ white paper from 2021. The guidance is aimed at individuals who have responsibility for digital transformation. In both local authorities and care provider organisations. It provides an aspirational framework to help them shape the future of digital solutions in social care.
The paper is focused on England. But it offers good practice and practical advice relevant to care providers across the UK and Ireland. We’ve summarised its key points in a series of blogs. To help Nourish users and others in social care learn from the White Paper.
Breaking Down the Sections
The new WGLL framework comprises 7 success measures divided into three categories. The three sections are Digitise, Connect and Transform.
This guidance builds on the NHS What Good Looks Like framework. It can be applied alongside the What Good Looks Like guidance for nursing. The DHSC page also contains a range best practice guides for digital working, and further supportive resources here.
Our first blog focuses on the three measures contained in the ‘Digitise’ category.
Well Led
“Your organisation’s leaders fully understand the benefits of digital technology and have the confidence and capability to drive forward digital transformation, sharing and learning from best practice.”
Digitisation is a long journey that starts with a simple decision. The decision to take a step forward into the unfamiliar in pursuit of improving the quality of care you provide and the quality of life for your teams that provide it.
In an ideal world, we would fully understand everything we do before we do it. But that’s not how the world works. Ambition and empathy are the essential starting blocks. The ambition to take on the process of digitisation and the empathy to ensure it is always rooted in the human experiences of the people providing and receiving care. Thereafter, it’s time to find the right digital partner for your organisation.
Our goal is to match our expertise with yours. So that we can produce the best results for your service and the people involved. We know each care provider is as unique as the community they support. Our team is here to ensure your unique community benefits from digitisation.
‘Digital Transformation’ is not a term we are wholly comfortable with at Nourish. We prefer to think of it as digital support, or digital augmentation. We’re here to help improve your service. By working with you to match our expertise in technology with your expertise in providing care. So, we can apply best practices from both perspectives. Producing effective digital solutions while always keeping the human connections at the heart of care.
To learn more about how we work with care providers you can read these case studies: Westmorland Care, Smart Care Homes & Care 4 U 2 Day.
Ensure Smart Foundations
“Your organisation has modern and secure digital infrastructure, and staff have reliable access to comprehensive and up-to-date digital records.”
A good start is half the journey in life, and ‘ensuring smart foundations’ is all about putting your business in a position to succeed from the get go. This means finding a digital partner that understands and appreciates the context of your care. There are a huge variety of factors to consider; geography, infrastructure, digital literacy and many more. Before offering solutions, a good digital partner will work with you to ensure they also understand these factors.
You may begin digitising with a robust knowledge of best security practise, and the reliability of local internet connections. You may not. It is important to work with your team and digital partner to understand what you want to accomplish, and how you plan to get there.
We are happy to talk to prospecting care providers about their experience and concerns regarding digitisation. In case you need more information about security, cloud based storage, or any other aspect of this process, we are happy to help. (Even if you don’t join us in the end)
If you’d like to learn more about digitising with Nourish and our onboarding process you can read these case studies: Leicestershire County Care Ltd, Your Care and Support & Nexus Care Services
Safe Practise
“Good data and cyber security means organisations can safely use and share information which can improve care and support for people.”
There is always going to be a risk when centralising information. As data becomes more commonly used across social care the opportunity for it to be mishandled or even abused naturally increases as well.
Education, empathy and proactivity are crucial to ensure your team is confident enough in the system they are using to maintain safe practice as well as being confident enough in their team and leadership to share any breaches they think might have occurred.
When choosing a digital partner, make sure you ask about their approach to data protection and cyber security. An expert digital platform should be able to explain how their system fits into your service simply and securely. The less you know, the more questions you need to ask.
There are also some fantastic resources online like the DSPT toolkit from Digital Care Hub, which WGLL points to directly on their outline.
If you’d like to know more about the importance of cyber security and our approach at Nourish you can read here.
Or if you are new to digital security feel free to contact us for a chat about the buzzwords, the meaning behind them and how they relate to care provision.
