Background
The health and care landscape is complicated to navigate. This complexity can lead to confusion and frustration for those seeking care and/or support. Many individuals find it challenging to identify the right services, understand eligibility criteria, or navigate between different providers whether that’s across the NHS (which is complex in it’s own right), the council, or the voluntary sector. And that's not taking account of the multitude of commissioned activities provided by commercial organisations such as opticians, domiciliary care providers and tele-care businesses. This issue is particularly acute for vulnerable populations, such as the elderly or those with chronic conditions, who often require multiple services across different parts of the system.
A view of Somerset Council’s ‘Connect Somerset’ ecosystem:
Goal
We will support residents, patients and providers access information quickly and easily so that they can make choices around what support they need to access and from what part of the system.
This goal supports our aim to make the Somerset health and care system easier to use and understand. We want to provide clear and simple information that helps people:
- Quickly find what they need
- Understand their healthcare options
- Choose the right support for them
By doing this, we hope to:
- Make healthcare experiences better for patients
- Help healthcare providers work more efficiently
Objectives
- User-need driven digital service development focused on supporting residents, patients and providers to be easily able to access the right support or information. This will be led by quantitative and qualitative research, ensuring we focus on the delivery of digital services and tools that will enable our Somerset communities to access useful content with local or relevant information.
- Automate processes and information gathering to help inform decision-making by multi-disciplinary teams across the system. This could include tools to extract information, reason, and offer recommendations to ensure the resident or the patient has access to the best possible outcome for them.
- Sign-posting to local offers, and offering options for neighbourhood support. By building community intelligence on behalf of individuals, families, and a community’s wellbeing, we can improve efficiency and build capacity by leveraging our collective assets, resources, and capabilities. This shifts the focus from crisis response to enhanced early intervention and prevention.