In Alocura Insights this month, we take a look at how the change in government will likely lead to far greater scrutiny of healthcare finances and performance. How improvement will be achieved is through effective and efficient management of resources – exactly what Alocura’s care administration systems offer.
In the wake of the general election, it was interesting to see that just seven days into the job, new Health Secretary Wes Streeting urgently ordered a “raw and frank assessment of the state of the NHS”, its finances and performance. Led by NHS surgeon and independent peer Lord Ara Darzi, who has previously said “there has been relatively limited attention paid to care outside hospitals,” it feels to us long overdue.
In fact, the lack of oversight into the financial and operational performance of personalised care budgets and settings is something we’ve been talking about at Alocura for years. Such concern about finance and performance in commissioned services is exactly why we developed Rostrata – our groundbreaking, cloud-based platform for care commissioners and providers – in the first place.
As an organisation providing care administration systems and services for commissioners and care providers using the latest digital healthcare tools, it was so clear to us that a digital system which gave everybody in the care process full oversight into not just the financial transactions but the actual care delivered wouldn’t just be beneficial, but game-changing.
When current processes allow for just 10 per cent of oversight into these packages of care through manual and paper-based audit trails, you can see why there needs to be a proper review into the entire approach of funding, commissioning and providing care outside of hospital settings. Not to cut it, but to simply understand where the money is being spent and needs to be spent.
And when it comes to auditing care delivered in the community, through personal budgets or other mechanisms, it does feel like we’re heading towards a set of circumstances where commissioners and providers will have to swiftly and meticulously interrogate both finances and performance.
That’s what Rostrata has been doing for our ever-growing customer base for the last 18 months. Through intelligent rostering we’ve been able to deliver quality operational information for care providers, enhancing their business performance, care delivery and financial audit capability.
Working with commissioners, Rostrata has offered a transparent picture of a care package, through instant financial audits, and demonstrating effective long-term outcomes. We’ve even been able to return hundreds of thousands of pounds-worth of unspent budgets.
So when people ask us about the cost of Rostrata – completely understandably in this difficult economic environment – we prefer to reframe it as a value proposition. Namely, that for less than 1 per cent of an annual personal budget you can have 100 per cent oversight on every financial transaction in that budget, understand the specifics and the quality of the care delivered, and track all of these metrics against the agreed care plan.
Oversight at any time
The care planning systems Rostrata offers, the information it gathers and the reporting suite it generates not only syncs with DSCR requirements, it’s available at any time through the desktop.
The days of waiting for a yearly audit, of firefighting care packages that are underperforming or at very worst not delivering for people, are over with Rostrata. Team Managers, Funders, Care Provider CEOs and Finance Departments can immediately spot where issues are arising and proactively do something about them.
So in terms of value to a commissioner or provider, nothing else comes close to Rostrata when it comes to truly understanding – and managing – the delivery of a care package.
And when Labour are proposing to move more care out of hospitals and into the community while improving technology and data, the prevailing winds are obvious. It will be vital for commissioners and care providers to be on top of their finances and systems. Rostrata is about meeting that need and finding efficiencies in the truest sense of the word – maximising the quality of work in an organised way, without wasting resources.