Bay Care Domiciliary Care - Case Study

Bay Care save £111,000 and improve compliance

Based in Paignton, Devon, Bay Care Domiciliary Care Ltd. are a growing provider of care and support services, including domiciliary care and live in care. As Bay Care grew, adding more clients and more carers, director Kat Green realised that existing systems and paper processes were inefficient and could undermine care quality and compliance. Despite being rated ‘Good’ across all areas by the CQC, Kat knew they could do better as she aimed for an ‘Outstanding’ rating.

Challenge

Growing pains

Bay Care used an existing software application to schedule their carers. It had numerous drawbacks; including having to input visits and check alerts manually. Payroll and invoicing processes took over a week to complete and manual checks were necessary to identify any errors within the invoices themselves.

Because of this, Bay Care’s admin overheads increased with each new client. This required the recruitment of more back office staff, which constrained the business’ ability to grow, as Kat recalls:

Due to these processes taking such a long time, we were investing more and more money into office staff to keep up with the demand of coordinating and taking on new packages.

The use of paper records added to Bay Care’s admin burden, because paper based assessment forms and other documentation had to be retrieved, scanned, typed up, printed and stored in multiple folders. The number of steps involved during the assessment process also caused delays in the on boarding of new clients, which hampered growth.

Compliance barriers

Bay Care’s back office were reliant upon carers to call and notify them when tasks were not completed during visits. This reliance upon human intervention was compromising Bay Care’s goal of increased compliance and tying up the time of both carers and back office staff.

The existing software did not give Bay Care the ability to monitor care quality or financial and business performance. This meant they were unable to identify areas where they could improve both care and business operations.

I would fully encourage any care provider to utilize this amazing system, it has helped us achieve a better quality and standard ahead of all other local providers and we feel it will help us towards our goal of achieving an ‘outstanding’ rating with CQC.

- Kat Green, Director

Goals
• Reduce costs
• Improve compliance
• ‘Oustanding’ CQC rating

Software used
• Access PeoplePlanner
• Access Mobizio

Key benefits
• £111,000 saved annually
• 35% improved compliance
• 60% reduction in client calls
• Invoicing errors reduced
• Efficient payroll
• Real time view of care

Due to PeoplePlanner and Mobizio I have reduced back office staff from 10 to 5. This gave me a yearly saving of around £75,000. I am also saving around £3,000 a month on postage and stationary due to the system being paperless.

Solutions

Kat decided that Bay Care’s back office overheads had to be reduced and that compliance could be improved. She began researching care management software, to see if these objectives could be achieved by using a better rostering system and by moving from paper to electronic records.

After looking at countless software packages, Kat selected an integrated solution from the Access Group, combining Access PeoplePlanner and Access Mobizio. This would give Bay Care a complete solution, including carer scheduling, electronic care planning, electronic MAR, mobile working, care monitoring, billing and finances. Crucially, all these elements were integrated, implemented and supported by a single supplier; The Access Group.

The implementation process was very straight forward, the training was fantastic and the system is very user friendly. We really did go all out and ensured that all 300 clients had a new care plan in place so staff had access to this immediately on their phones, otherwise the system would have been implemented quicker. To fully implement the software and transfer over all of our data to an excellent standard it took us around 8 weeks.

Results

Reduced costs

Using a paperless system where all elements are integrated has eradicated unnecessary admin. This has enabled Bay Care to streamline their back office, saving £75,000 annually, with an additional £3000 saved each month on postage and stationery costs.

Kat also reports that using Access PeoplePlanner has made financial processes more efficient and less error prone: 

Payroll now takes me a day to complete for a 4 week period. Invoicing now takes me just 2 hours to complete, with next to no errors.

More compliant

Access Mobizio’s unique dashboard is linked to the mobile app used by carers and displays live information from the point of care. Kat says this has given the back office team at Bay Care “a real-time picture of what is happening within the community” enabling them to “identify patterns and concerns without relying on carers to call this through.”

The coordination between the point of care mobile app, monitoring dashboard and alerting features have helped drive up compliance levels at Bay Care, to outstanding levels: 

The tasks on the Mobizio app ensure no duties are ever forgotten during visits, reducing phone calls from clients by at least 60%. Overall the compliance of the company has increased from 60% to 95%. This is due to the fantastic back office alerts which ensure we never miss a task.

The solution has also given Kat and her colleagues the valuable business intelligence she needs to foster and manage the successful growth of Bay Care:

 I am now able to monitor the growth and development of the business better via the financial summary systems. With PeoplePlanner and Mobizio we now feel confident that we can develop the business with systems which fit our needs now and as we grow.