Peopletoo was commissioned by Lambeth Council and the LGA to review the “Front Door” across Adult Social Care. With a focus on improving service provision and delivering financial savings through demand management, the review focused on a number of areas:

  • Customer Journey
  • The utilisation of the Corporate Contact Centre
  • Demand modelling for new and existing clients
  • Analysing Occupational Therapy demand outcomes
  • Streamlining demand and identifying opportunities to develop additional capacity
  • Reviewing potential opportunities to integrate Front Door with Health
  • Identifying opportunities for improved use of digital and technological solutions

Working across the Initial Contact Service, Peopletoo developed a future ‘Front Door’ model, which focused on dealing with new clients, with existing contacts being redirected to long-term teams. The key principles of this model were:

  • Channel shift
  • Increased focus on prevention and short-term intervention
  • A ‘strengths-based approach
  • Timely and proportionate responses
  • Maximising the use of resource

Peopletoo found that through utilising digital, using resources more effectively, increasing awareness of the Voluntary and Community Sector and better managing demand through culture change and channel shift, substantial improvements and efficiencies could be delivered. We outlined how the Initial Contact Service deliver ‘strengths-based screening at the first point of contact for new clients, with all existing clients redirected to long-term teams, reducing the number of touchpoints and improving their customer experience. Further to this, the new clients receive an outcome-focused screening which maximises prevention and short-term intervention to their benefit.  Links between the Local Authority and the Voluntary and Community sector would be further developed to ensure there was an integrated approach for customers and all possible information, advice and guidance was being utilised to its full potential.

Not only did this programme identify savings in excess of £750,000, to be delivered over a  two-year period, it delivered an approach that improved the customer journey, promoted self-help and personalisation of care and delivered more effective management of contacts with a proportionate response.

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