Putting Enfield Council on the path to successful service improvement
Background
Enfield Council had been facing significant challenges with its adult social care for several years due to an increase in demand putting the service under considerable financial pressure.
The council approached 31ten for support to help them address this issue after our consultancy was recommended by other local authorities. Enfield commissioned our consultancy to use our public sector expertise to ensure their service’s operating model was fit for purpose as part of their wider transformation plan.
Our project brief
We identified six key lines of enquiry to investigate in Phase 1 of our work for the council:
- Demand – Explore how to respond to increasing demand and help reduce waitlists and backlogs.
- Processes and practice – Review existing processes and procedures to understand effectiveness.
- Commissioning – Are the council’s commissioning models supporting prevention and independence?
- In-house provision – Review of quality, impact and value for money, including community equipment and reablement support.
- Technology – Explore whether to expand the use of technology to support residents.
- Dementia pathway – Review dementia services to ensure best outcomes and value for money.
Our approach
The 12-week Phase 1 programme involved extensive research across Enfield’s adult social care service.
Our work included:
- User interviews
- Focus groups
- Desktop research
- Data review
- End-to-end process and pathway mapping
- Weekly ‘catch-up’ meetings with senior leaders
- A recommendations report including ‘quick wins’ and longer-term improvements
“We aimed to do as much of our engagement in person as possible to build relationships and get people in a room together. We’re happy to get stuck in and be on the ground, working alongside our client’s teams.”
Laura Power-Wharton, Director, 31ten
The challenges
Enfield’s limited data presented a challenge but we overcame this by ensuring we made the best use of the information available. We also made sure we talked to the right people to get the information we needed to deliver our client’s goals.
We were also clear that Phase 1’s six lines of enquiry were only a starting point, and so we were flexible about adapting them to achieve the best results.
Outcomes & Benefits
We successfully delivered Phase 1 to give Enfield Council invaluable insight on how they could successfully improve their adult social care, including:
- Using preventative ‘step-up’ reablement support as the default response to urgent/crisis community referrals.
- Involving the council’s adult social care team earlier in discharge decisions to avoid admission into long-term residential care.
We’ve now been re-engaged by Enfield to deliver Phase 2 of our support, which is now underway. This 16-week programme will see us put our key recommendations into action, starting with ‘quick wins’ like making the website content more person-centred and exploring the best way to improve data quality. We’ll also work on some of the longer-term measures, with the overarching aim being to put the council’s adult social care service in a stronger position.
What the client said…
“The 31ten team combine strong sector knowledge with a pragmatic approach to improvement. They understood a complex environment very quickly and provided constructive challenge. They’ve given us insightful analysis and practical recommendations.”
Tony Theodoulou, Executive Director of People, Enfield Council
Laura adds: “Our independent, expert view showed Enfield how their service could actually change, especially around prevention.”
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