Mrs Green is a single parent of an infant with profound physical disabilities. She is a single parent, new to the Island. She has arranged a private rented bungalow in Wootton for 6 months. Registering with a GP she is advised to help seek help from social services (she looks stressed out and badly in need of advice and respite). There are no up-to-date leaflets in the surgery and no web-link but the GP gives her a telephone number to contact. She phones and relays her story to the Duty Officer who tells her to contact “so and so” at another office. The worker doesn’t say she will get someone to contact her or by when. A day later she phones the new number, gives a little of her story to a receptionist and is passed through to a social worker who takes her story in detail. The worker agrees to make a visit but doesn’t say when other than “probably Wednesday next week”.
The
weekend passes because appointments are not available then the social worker
calls, takes more written detail, leaves some information on possible support
services and agrees to contact a respite facility to arrange for Mrs G to visit
to see if she is interested in using it (even though it will not be available
for at least a month – “it’s very busy”. She is also given contacts for the
Housing Office and Welfare Rights (where she will have to give her story again
and fill in another form or two).
Think
Again!
Mrs
Green, on registering with a GP (she completes her own details direct onto a
computer screen). The options page allows her to select services she is
interested in and, as a consequence is referred direct to a respite facility.
Details are transferred electronically and a direct booking made.
Simultaneously an electronic referral is made to social services and housing
and an appointment entered automatically into the relevant care manager’s diary
for a weekend appointment (they work flexi-time 10 days out of 14).