Social care dashboard from Liquidlogic

Liquidlogic has announced the launch of a dashboard for children’s social care, providing managers with real-time information on national indicators.

The public sector software supplier said its ICS Dashboard was based on System C Healthcare’s dashboard technology for the NHS and was the first product developed jointly by the two companies since they merged last year.

Liquidlogic said the ICS dashboard sits on top of existing IT systems and drills down to display a department’s performance against OFSTED’s key national indictors.

The company said it gives managers at a glance information on the performance of their teams or departments against the indicators, without having to wait for a monthly meeting.

Managers can also see statistics, such as overdue actions, for all children at any point in the process. Liquidlogic said the dashboard is also adaptable, with indicators that can be changed to reflect new guidelines.

The company said unannounced OFTSED inspections, introduced in the aftermath of the Baby P scandal, focus on assessing a department’s performance against its key indicators for contact, referral and assessment arrangements for children in need and children who may be in need of protection.

Denise Harrison, sales and marketing director at Liquidlogic, said: “Local authorities are keen to have management information at the touch of a button and in real-time. ICS Dashboard will give them this, and provide genuine time-saving benefits for Children’s Social Care managers immediately.”

Harrison added that bringing healthcare experience into the social care setting and vice versa was a key factor behind the merger of Liquidlogic with System C.

System C last year won a contract to deliver dashboards to a dozen NHS trusts, which helped boost its most recent six months earnings by 34%.

Steve Gray, programme manager at System C, said dashboards had already delivered huge benefits to the NHS in terms of improved quality of care and efficiency.

He added: “They are fantastic decision support tools which pull together information from different systems in ways that make it easy for users of all types to understand what’s happening in their organisation and what actions to take to improve things.

“Our next step is to combine useful health and social care indicators, using information drawn from GPs and hospitals as well as social services departments, onto a single dashboard."