The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and the London Borough of Wandsworth (Richmond and Wandsworth) have successfully integrated Mosaic, Servelec’s case management software for social care, with one supporting process across both local authorities.

This makes Richmond and Wandsworth the first councils in England to implement a single social care system with one business process across two authorities.

As existing Servelec customers, both Richmond and Wandsworth councils were already using Mosaic for social care case management, but they followed very different business and recording processes. When the councils entered a shared staffing arrangement in late 2016, the teams set about a four-year integration journey to merge these processes.

Using a single system means that both councils can follow more joined-up working practices across adults and children’s social care. Mosaic integrates adults and children’s social care, finance, and early help data, increases efficiency and gives social care professionals the workflows they need to achieve more positive outcomes for the people they support.

Cllr Clare Salier, Cabinet member for Adult Care & Health in Wandsworth said: “This has been a major achievement for the two councils to jointly deliver. It brings many efficiencies for our social care staff and will assist them in providing better support and services to our residents which is always our ultimate goal. It’s fantastic to be the first to deliver this level of system integration in England.”

Cllr Piers Allen Lead, member for Adult Social Care & Health and Public Health in Richmond said: “We are proud to have delivered this significant achievement and be first in the country to achieve this level of integration between two council social care systems. This will really help our staff to work better, more efficiently and effectively and support the delivery of better services for our residents with less time inputting data and more time dedicated to our service users.”

Gill Ford, Head of Strategic Performance at Richmond and Wandsworth said: “We’ve achieved what no other English council has done – a single social care system across two authorities with one business process. Those who work in this area will know this is incredibly complex. It isn’t just about the IT and the technical parts; much of this is about managing change and culture. We’re keen to show other local authorities how it can be done, offer advice and highlight the challenges we faced along the way.”

Annabel Parker, Assistant Director of Adult Social Care Operations at Richmond and Wandsworth, said: “Having a single Mosaic system is fantastic and means I can easily and efficiently move between working with and responding to Richmond and Wandsworth residents, something that I need to do every day as part of my role in the SSA. It can’t be underestimated how much the single system has improved my ability to work in an agile way.”

Kat Van Praagh, Programme Manager at London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, and the London Borough of Wandsworth, added: “When you’re trying to manage two separate systems that do exactly the same thing just in a different way, your efforts double. We were developing reports, forms and processes twice, so from a process perspective, we’ve been able to streamline significantly.  There’s also now a reduced risk of duplication of error, because we have more consistency across both councils.”

Social care teams and back-office staff work across both Richmond and Wandsworth councils so, from a user perspective, they no longer have to log out of one system and into another. This means no more confusion about which system they’re using, and the integration has already been positively received by social workers.

David McKinney, Local Government Managing Director at Servelec, said: “As long-standing Servelec customers it’s great to play our part in supporting both councils’ long-term integrated care ambitions. We’re excited to work with Richmond and Wandsworth over the coming months to further help improve working processes, reduce costs and provide better support to those who need it most.”