Agenda item

The Strategic Director, Adult Social Care submits a report that provides an update on the Adult Social Care Customer Portal which went live in April 2016.   The Commission will also receive a demonstration of the ASC Portal.

The Adult Social Care (ASC) Scrutiny Commission is recommended to note the report content and progress made on enhancing the ASC Portal and provide feedback and suggestions for future improvements.  

The Strategic Director, Adult Social Care (ASC) submitted a report that provided a twelve month update on the ASC Customer Portal. Prior to the consideration of the report, the Commission received a demonstration which showed how the Portal worked and how an enquiry could be made.

Members heard that the enquirer would need to provide an email address and questioned what would happen if they did not have one. The officer responded that people using the online system were likely to have an email address; the enquiry could be made by a family member or friend who was acting on the authority of the person in question.

Queries were raised regarding the number of people who terminated their enquiry before the process had finished.  Officers explained that the enquirer may have left the site because they had found the answer they were seeking or it might be because the enquirer felt that the process was not providing the information they were seeking. The Department had undertaken considerable work to streamline the process and it was now a much more straightforward system. A Member commented that she was interested in the feedback from those people who had terminated their enquiry before the process had finished and the officer responded that they were very keen to receive feedback and speak to people about their experiences. The Strategic Director added that sometimes people phoned in after they had terminated their enquiry. If they did, officers asked them if they had used the portal and if so, feedback was sought as to their experiences.

In response to questions raised, Members heard that the ASC portal was a site within the Adult Social Care pages of Leicester City Council website. The information that a person submitted on the portal went straight into the Department’s customer database. This resulted in a considerable saving of officer time in not having to transfer the information from one source into another. There were links within the portal to other websites such as NHS Choices where the user could access further information which may be relevant to their enquiry.

A Member suggested that the portal should be brought to the attention of Ward Councillors; they may be interested in arranging a training session and local Members may wish to consider how they supported awareness of the Portal through using their community meeting budget.

A Member asked whether someone with little or no English would be able to use the portal. The Deputy City Mayor responded that this was a difficult issue because any translation within the portal, would need to be offered in many different languages. A Member raised a concern that sometimes grandchildren acted as a translator for an elderly grandparent and this put the child in a very difficult situation because of the nature of the questions that were asked.  Officers explained that practitioners tended to have a pragmatic view of when a translator was needed and family members were not asked to translate when a formal assessment was being carried out.

The Chair asked whether some people might be missing out on the help they needed, as usage figures for the new portal appeared to be relatively low.  The Strategic Director responded that the portal was still at an early stage and it was expected that the number of portal submissions would increase over time.  Members also heard that the portal did not replace telephone enquiries; it was an additional route by which enquiries could be made and information found. A Member questioned whether people would be able to use the portal from one of the customer service hubs, and it was confirmed that this would be possible, but heard that it was envisaged that because of the nature of enquiries, people were more likely to access the portal from a home setting. 

The Chair concluded the discussion and asked for the report to be noted and requested a further update be brought to a future meeting.

AGREED:

that the report be noted and a further update on the Adult Social Care Portal be brought to a future meeting of the Commission.