Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS) has partnered with GovTech leader, Civica, to help community-based services run more efficiently over the winter period.
LCHS has implemented Civica Scheduling cloud software to increase clinical time and improve efficiencies for 150 staff across its urgent community response, home visiting, and discharge-to-assess teams.
Replacing manual processes, the digital platform automatically matches clinical care with patient needs, enabling clinicians to see their schedules via an app, manage their time better, and spend more time with patients.
Via intelligent scheduling, caseloads will be automated based on specific rules such as clinical skill, patient need, location, and visit duration.
Improved data will help with sounder decision-making around patients remaining at home or moving into residential care, helping prevent bed blocking in NHS settings, and improving patient flow.
It will also help LCHS to show how responsive its services are, for example reaching patients within two hours, and make reporting easier with an improved joined-up platform linking all services.
And the new platform will help the trust meet its environmental goals, with more-efficient route planning and reduced mileage for staff.
Liana Arnold, deputy divisional lead for integrated urgent and emergency care at the trust said: “Our primary purpose is to provide great care, close to home, because we know patients recover better in their own home or their place of residence.
“Civica’s intelligent scheduling platform will help with providing the best out-of-hospital care we possibly can and avoiding admissions into acute hospitals as the NHS faces unprecedented pressure this winter.”
Nathan Gasco, divisional managing director at Civica Health and Care, added: “Our intelligent scheduling software is helping LCHS to better meet the needs of its patients at a crucial time – providing the best care in the community in the most-effective way.”