A discovery phase to understand how we can redesign the ‘front door’ for adult social care

Tender description

Summary of the work A discovery phase to understand user needs for adult social care needs assessments. Expected Contract Length 3 months Latest start date Tuesday 8 May 2018 Budget Range £40,000 - £50,000 excluding VAT Why the Work is Being Done Hackney provides a range of social care support for adults, consistent with its statutory duties. However, we know we can do more to signpost people towards non statutory services and are interested in the potential for providing a more empathetic, user-centred digital experience for self-service and assisted digital support. Problem to Be Solved The Council provides adult social care needs assessment consistent with its statutory obligations. These are mostly done over the phone and with paper-based processes which is time-consuming and costly. Residents who are not assessed as requiring support, may have to restart the process at a later date. There is not a simple way of tracking outcomes for people who have been referred to third party services. An online assessment is available via www.hackneyicare.org.uk although take-up is low. Who Are the Users As an older person I need to: - understand what I’m entitled to so that I can get the right support - understand the options available so I can get the right support for my circumstances As a carer I need to: - understand and follow the process so that I can support an older person - help someone through their assessment so that they get what they need As a health professional I need to: - signpost people to a simple needs assessment so that they get the right support Existing Team Adult social care is working in partnership with Hackney IT. We have business analysis, user research and service design skills we can contribute to a multi-disciplinary team, as required, We would expect to identify a product owner through this piece of work. Current Phase Not started Skills & Experience • Provide a multi-disciplinary team, including user research, service design and front-end developer • Adopt user-centred design and Agile approaches, consistent with the govenrment’s service design manual • Have experience of redesigning a digital service to meet the needs of users • Understand how to meet the needs of a range of users, including those lacking digital skills • Be agnostic of any particular software, enabling us to consider a range of options to meet user needs • Share their work freely and openly with the Council and the wider community • Have had work assessed against a digital service standard (local or national) • Experience of adult social care Nice to Haves • Promote user-centred design and Agile across the Council • Work with a Hackney-based apprentice • Experience of working with Mosaic - the social care system provided by Servelec Work Location Hackney Council offices in Mare Street, E8 Working Arrangments We would expect the supplier to work onsite for the majority of the engagement, enabling them to share their work with social care colleagues and test propositions with residents. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Understanding of user needs from the service • Understanding of the policy context • Clarity of the approach • Experience from an analogous project • Team structure, including skills, experiences and relevance of individuals • Identification of risks and plan to mitigate them Cultural Fit Criteria • Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers • Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions • Share knowledge and experience with team members and the wider service Payment Approach Capped time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 5% Price 35% Questions from Suppliers 1. Will this insight discovery phase cover a logged in view of the service? I don’t understand the question 2. What do you foresee the developer role doing? In our experience, developers can provide useful skills in Discovery through:- identifying technical complexities and risks- developing lightweight prototypes which help visualise product concepts- advising on prioritisation of products to be prototyped 3. You’ve specified ‘older people’ as one of your three target audiences – what age range does this cover? Is this linked to any other more specific social care needs? At this stage, we don’t have a sophisticated understanding of our ‘customer segmentation’ although data is available on service users. We would expect the discovery phase to explore this further and, in particular, to identify the preferred channels of users. 4. Where are the call centre support team based? Will you be able to provide access to prospective and current service users, call centre staff and medical professionals etc? The contact centre team is based in the Hackney Service Centre. We should also be able to facilitate access to health teams in the NHS. 5. What do you define as your 'front-door' and what does this include? Do you have any data - anecdotal or analytics - around the performance of the current digital services? The ‘front door’ includes online, phone, paper and in-person support to people and carers requesting help. We have Google Analytics data on Hackneyicare available. However, it may be that the discovery phase recommends that considering a redesign of the whole ‘front door’ is less achievable/attractive than considering the customer journey for a single user need. 6. Have the non-statutory services already been identified? To an extent . . . We are currently developing a Directory of Services with REST APIs to ensure it's easier to integrate this type of signposting. 7. How pre-defined are the expected output of the work – i.e. Is the scope constrained to understanding requirements for a Digital Needs Assessment? Or if findings lead to other, as yet un-specified solutions (digital or not), would this be acceptable? The output is not pre-defined. We expect to identify a whole range of opportunities through the discovery, which will require prioritisation and a high-level cost/benefit analysis for further development. 8. Will the work require analysis of potential suppliers of digital assessments or related applications? We suspect that we need to understand more about the current service and opportunities for improvement before we can move forward to assessing whether existing solutions meet our users' needs. 9. Will we have enabled access to Call Centre staff, Social Workers, local customers, Community 3rd sector/agents/providers for interview/workshop? Who is the senior project sponsor (their role) of the work? Yes. The senior project sponsor is the Head of Strategic Programmes and Governance, Children, Adults and Community Health(Adult Services)