Welcome to the spa demonstration.

The demonstration follows the referral of a fictional vulnerable person to a service and subsequent related events, through the use of spa .

Lorna Ardley has been the subject of social service supervision for 12 years and has had to flee her home because of emotional and physical abuse from her ex-partner.

The users of spa in this demonstration are the staff of KWMT, a fictional medium sized housing association contracted to provide floating support services by Islington Borough Council. They use spa on their intranet.

The demonstration is divided into chapters which are displayed above. To play a chapter, simply select it and click on the play button above the image.

You can pause or stop the demonstration at any point and step through at your own pace.

The first step in creating Lorna's referral is to record her personal details.

If Lorna were an existing tenant of KWMT her details could be retrieved from KWMT's housing system.

Before saving Lorna's details, spa carries out an intelligent search to reduce the risk of duplicate entries.

Lorna has been referred to KWMT by her social worker Amanda Moore. Lorna's details are recorded by her case officer Tracey Tudor.

A wizard takes Tracy through the six steps to capture all the necessary customer referral, service, accommodation, customer group, household and assessment information.

For the purposes of this demonstration, we will go next to the Household page.

Lorna has had two children adopted, has another child in care and a child living with her who is on the “at risk” register. Since this child will also be receiving the service, he is recorded as a household member.

This information contributes to the full set of Client Record Form data which can be submitted on acceptance of the case on to a Supporting People service.

Lorna's referral has now been created.

All information entered may now be reviewed and amended.

Tracy may now record any contact, notes or meetings relating to Lorna as Case Notes (See Chapter 2).

Next Chapter >>

This chapter shows how case notes may be used to build up a profile of Lorna.

Case notes describe telephone calls, face to face contacts, emails, letters or text messages that occur with the customer or with an outside agency.

They can also be used to record internal meetings about the customer as well as notes to yourself.

Tracey follows up Lorna's referral with a one hour home visit. Back at the office, she records this meeting.

Information is thus available on time spent by an officer on a particular case.

Tracy can elect to make a "public version" of this information visible to other officers in spa's Service Journal. spa can also interface to KWMT's other systems (such as their Customer Relationship Management software) to export this "public version" to their organisation.

Further case notes help to build a profile of Lorna.

Tracy, or other case officers on the service, record any file notes, notes from internal meetings and all contact with the customer or external agencies.

All contact is easily entered, measurable and categorised for reporting.

Over a period of time, a huge number of case notes can accumulate on a customer. These can be filtered by date range, the type of contact, issues, the officer involved or by a particular word or phrase in the note.

This filtering, for instance, would show a list of all face to face contacts made by a specific officer.

Next Chapter >>

The customer is central to spa.

This chapter shows the detailed relevant information that can be held about Lorna, her home, health, family and lifestyle.

It provides a focal point for all professionals dealing with her.

Tracy finds out more about Lorna and her case, and looks her up in spa to add to more information about her.

A “Soundex” search is provided enabling an officer to find a customer when unsure of the spelling of the customer's name.

A single view is provided of Lorna’s details, including personal details, visiting notes, Professional Contacts, Benefits, Activities, Diagnoses and Medication.

This information is protected by spa's security model allowing only officers assigned to the case to view or amend it.

Lorna is diabetic and suffering from mild depression. Details of her medication are recorded in spa by the case officer.

The service may be configured to prevent alterations to medication by anyone but the service manager.

Along with Lorna's medication, her family doctor is added into the system as a professional contact.

spa maintains a database of professional contacts allowing both a picture of all professionals working with a customer and also of all customers that a professional works with.

Thus, for instance,if a psychiatrist were taken ill, spa can report on all customers who may be affected by this.

Next Chapter >>

This chapter covers the process of reviewing Lorna's referral, the decision about whether she is eligible for the service and the acceptance of her case onto the service.

Having accepted Lorna, her details are sent to the Government's Client Record Office in St. Andrews as a Client Record Form (CRF).

The Service Manager, wishes to review Lorna’s eligibility for the service. They can do this by looking at the referral case list.

This case list can be filtered to show: an officer's cases; cases within a staff group (to allow other officers to cover sickness etc), or in the case of a manager, all cases on the system.

Each service has a set of elligibility rules associated with it. The Service Manager checks Lorna's assessment against the rules for the service.

Lorna can be accepted on the service even if she does not meet all the eligibility rules, but a reason must be given.

Acceptance of the case triggers a message within spa to alert the primary case officer that a support plan needs to be implemented. If this plan has not been created within a certain period, the service manager is also alerted of this.

Once Lorna is accepted onto the service, a Client Record Form (CRF) can be sent electonically by spa to the Government's Client Record Office in St. Andrews.

A summary of the information about to be sent is displayed.

Information is validated by spa at the point of entry against the CRF specification: there should be no returned forms.

Next Chapter>>

This chapter covers Lorna's support plan. Support planning is integral to spa. Plans are created as a series of interventions which the system tracks through versions of the plan.

As well as the system plan which we will see here, spa also allows hand written plans to be scanned and stored against the customer.

On the acceptance of Lorna's case, spa generates a reminder to her primary officer that a support plan is required for her.

If the support plan is not implemented within a configurable period, a secondary reminder is sent to the service manager: this ensures that all customers have a plan.

A support plan comprises a number of interventions related to the objectives of the service. Here we see an intervention being created.

Along with the service objective and the type of intervention, each intervention comprises a target date, and one or more people who will help to meet the objective.

Comments made by the officer and customer when reviewing the intervention may also be captured.

Before implementing her support plan, an assessment is carried out of her needs. This assessment is updated for each subsequent version of the support plan, providing a set of "soft" outcomes in comparision to the "hard" outcomes to the interventions.

Lorna's support plan is built up with her. When the interventions are complete it can be implemented.

When a plan is implemented, a copy of the signed agreement scanned into spa. This will be stored against this version of the plan.

Some configurable time before Lorna's plan reaches its review date, the case officer receives a reminder that it is due.

Each intervention is reviewed and an outcome is entered against it with comments and a decision on whether it should continue into the next plan.

When all the interventions have been reviewed and an outcome placed against each one, spa generates a new plan based on the interventions that were marked to be followed-on. This new plan is then reviewed with Lorna and implemented as before.

The original plan and all previous versions may be seen (though not changed) within spa.

Lorna's progress, according to her assessments, can be reviewed as a graphical representation.

Next Chapter >>

Lorna eventually moves on from the service.

She has sustained her own tenancy for over a year; she is no longer under social service supervision; she has regained her self-esteem; her child is no longer regarded as at risk; she has undertaken courses in business IT and child care; and she is seeking to be reunited with her child in care.

She has been pushed to help herself, she has taken the opportunity and has achieved independence.

Lorna's Departure Reason is defined in spa as having completed the support programme, a positive outcome.

The complete story of Lorna’s use of the service, and how the service provider has supported Lorna, remains in spa.