SOCIAL services chiefs have confirmed that Powys County Council’s social care staff will be moving over to use new a IT software system in the New Year.
At joint scrutiny committee meeting on Thursday, July 3, councillor looked at the council’s strategic risk register in some depth and asked senior officers what work was taking place to lessen the issues and deal with the risk to the authority.
One of the main risks on the register which has been a problem for the council for several years is the Welsh Community Care Information System (WCCIS) and that the council believes it is not: “fit for purpose.”
WCCIS is multimillion pound IT investment supplied by the Welsh Government to fully integrate health and social care in Wales.
It is supposed to mean that community nurses, mental health teams, social workers and therapists can share electronic records so that they know where a patient is with their treatment.
The council has used it since 2016.
But problems using the system emerged which included outages with staff unable to update records in a timely manner, and in 2022 the council decided to dump the system at the end of the contract period.
Since then, the council has been working to find a replacement system.
Senior manager for adult social care Adam Greenow updated councillors on the latest with the software system.
Mr Greenow said: “A new social care management system contract has been agreed and the transition to the new system is planned for January.
“Preparation include data cleansing and staff training and we’re working in collaboration with Carmarthen (council) for insights on the new system as they are already up and running.
“We’re looking forward to moving to the new system, a lot of trust has been lost (in WCCIS) because of how bad it’s been.”
Cllr Gwynfor Thomas (Conservative) who chaired the meeting asked for assurance that the council could meet the January deadline.
Head of digital services Ellen Sullivan said: “We are part of a national team, and a lot of the other local authorities are in the same situation as we are, in terms of taking ourselves off WCCIS and moving to a new social care platform.
“We made sure the system we procured is fit for purpose and we’re really confident with this system and will meet our needs.”
Chairwoman of the Health and Care scrutiny committee which covers Social Services, Cllr Amanda Jenner (Conservative) said: “This is a positive as there’s been loads of problems with the (WCCIS) previous system.”
Cllr Chris Walsh (Labour) added that it was good to see “progress” being made on this issue.
Councillors noted the report which will go before the Liberal Democrat/Labour Cabinet at a meeting later this month.
