V5 Pathways To Care – a Discharge to Assess service

A single source of truth for the Discharge to Assess Pathway (D2A)

The challenge for Pathways To Care

D2A presents an information-sharing challenge for Local Authorities and NHS Trusts, to ensure the safe, efficient discharge from hospital of vulnerable people, when they’re medically well enough to leave hospital. The process requires a multi-agency approach involving hospitals (ward staff, doctors, discharge teams, pharmacy services), CCGs, adult social care teams, local authorities, transport providers, domiciliary care providers and others.

The need to solve the D2A challenge and provide a cloud service, supplier agnostic, that would securely digitise this information sharing formed part of the NHS Digital 2020 Social Care Digital Innovation Accelerator (SCDIA) program. The SCDIA focusses on solving problems experienced by Local Authorities, community and primary care, and to develop real working solutions that can be scaled across local government and the wider public sector.

What we did

Co-production Workshops
Stakeholder Engagement
Business Analysis
Specification Writing
Workflow
UX Design
Visual and Responsive Design
Rapid Prototyping
Front-End Development
Technical Architecture
Framework Development

The results

A collaboratively created system meant key stakeholders shaped the system’s design. This approach continues to drive adoption and enhancements added post launch.

Patients are processed on the system according to agreed standards with precautions added to ensure patients are not lost.

Local Authority and NHS staff have a transparent single source of truth for D2A patients, offering impressive annual net savings:

Maldaba worked collaboratively and flexibly throughout to support the five co-funding councils and their local health and care partners in developing the Pathways To Care system. Maldaba’s adaptability, clear communication and understanding of user needs and pressures were all critical to making rapid progress amid changing hospital discharge guidance and the pandemic. Their ability and commitment to deliver a viable product meeting the diverse needs of multiple localities in these circumstances was impressive.

Edmund Willis - Care and Health Improvement Programme, Local Government Association

Our experience has been one of real collaboration throughout the project, design through to development and implementation, which included work in relation to information governance and cyber security. Maldaba were keen to ensure that the technical system delivered what we needed to support and transform the way we worked across health and social care. They have flexed and adapted the digital solution as issues or staff suggestions for additional functionality came up. Maldaba have been a real pleasure to work with in a truly collaborative way.

Wendy Lawtey - Head of Adult Social Care & Performance, North Lincolnshire Council

Maldaba have been excellent to work with on this project. They were highly professional, with a good understanding of the requirements and scope, ensuring all stakeholders views and processes were taken into consideration. This was achieved through Maldaba’s commitment to collaborative working with regular meetings, workshops and communications with all stakeholders.

Jackie Harris, Project Manager, Digital Adult Social Care, NHS Digital

Identified issues

The updated D2A model introduced in March 2020 aimed to streamline hospital discharges in light of Covid-19. Teams across the country have been using spreadsheets, email and the telephone to exchange information on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis.

Initial process

Following an open competition, Maldaba was chosen by CC2i (the platform that runs the SCDIA) and the Local Government Association (LGA) as the technical partner to co-produce a solution. Maldaba worked with five Local Authorities and their delivery partners across health, care and transport to co-design and deliver Pathways To Care (P2C), holding online workshops attended by up to 70 staff.

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Core features

PTC offers case management, tracking and reporting features, allowing users from multiple organisations to create, update and monitor D2A cases across multiple pathways on an open, human driven platform. PTC supports the D2A process from the point at which a person is identified on the ward as requiring support on discharge, through to the point that the person receives an assessment on their longer term needs within a community setting.

View live project >

Related case study – PAR

Maldaba have collaborated with the Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) to create a web-based digital platform for the Participatory Action Research (PAR) process.

Read the case study >

Ready to collaborate with us and solve your problems with software that delivers long-term impact?

Who are we and what do we do?

We are a team of highly experienced developers, designers, and project managers with expertise in web development, app development, data management, digital transformation, and integration with third-party systems.

We work closely with NHS and healthcare operations leaders to develop innovative and user-friendly software solutions designed to solve complex problems, make processes more efficient and, ultimately, deliver long-term improvements to patient experience and the wellbeing of healthcare workers.

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