Children’s services system wins national IT award

The West Lothian Community Health and Care Partnership (CHCP) has won the Local Government IT Excellence Award for its ‘C-Me’ project, designed to improve the delivery of services to children in the region.

West Lothian CHCP beat off competition from Hertfordshire County Council and East Riding of Yorkshire Council to scoop the prize for its C-me application, a shared information system between West Lothian Council Social Services, NHS Lothian, West Lothian Education Schools and Services, Lothian and Borders Police and the Scottish Children’s Reporters Office.

Dr Helen Hammond, project lead at West Lothian CHCP told EHI Primary Care: “This project was very much a collaboration of many organizations and demonstrates the significant achievements that can be made through effective partnership working.

“It is an honour to have received this recognition after three and a half years hard work on this system, and we look forward to rolling out across the whole of the Lothian data sharing partnership on the back of this success.”

C-Me enables secure sharing of concerns and information electronically between all professionals providing children’s services plus delivery of the components of electronic shared assessment.

The project was such a hit that it was praised by the Scottish Parliament, who last month said: “The Parliament congratulates West Lothian… for launching the C-me information-sharing system which, at a time when there is a great deal of concern about child protection issues, is an example of agencies working together to create a clear picture of a child’s needs through sharing relevant background information and will improve the delivery of services to children throughout West Lothian.”

David Robertson, project manager at West Lothian CHCP said: “It has been a particularly challenging project for all parties involved and it is extremely satisfying that the intelligent and thoughtful use of information sharing was particularly highlighted.”

The award was presented to West Lothian CHCP by IT trade body Intellect’s chief operating officer, Charles Ward, who also chaired the judging panel, at the annual Society of Information Technology Management (Socitm) local government IT manager’s organisation conference in Harrogate on 3 October.

Ward said: “C-Me is an example of true IT excellence, using technology to share information between practitioners, and ultimately to deliver a higher standard of care for citizens.”

Award sponsors, Dell and Ericom Software also backed C-Me as the winners of the award.

Barry Evans, local government manager for Dell UK said: “Dell congratulates C-Me for demonstrating how technology can be optimised to improve the delivery of community services where it matters most – for children, the citizens of tomorrow.”

Ian Platt, managing director of Ericom Software added: “The C-Me system demonstrates the real value that IT can make in improving the welfare of communities and assisting government agencies to share resource and information to ultimately improve service delivery for their communities.”