As part of the Digitising Social Care programme’s Clock is Ticking campaign, Rebecca White, business data analyst for learning disability charity Seashell Trust, outlines the difference a digital system has made to residents and staff.

Going digital has helped our carers to spot behaviour patterns and signals from young people with learning disabilities and autism, allowing for the planning of tailored activities and care.

I support care managers and teams in our day services and care houses, where young people live in safe, supported, shared accommodation and attend school, college or work-based learning. I signed up for the Topol Fellowship from the NHS Digital Academy to help manage the switch from paper-based records to digital social care records across Seashell Trust’s 10 houses, plus our day services and outreach work. We chose our system from Digital Social Care’s assured solutions list.

I went into it feeling pretty cynical and thinking the first few months would be difficult for the team, but that the benefits would come later. At the end of the first week, not one of the team had had to stay late to write up their notes because they had done it on the job as they went along. During the second week, updating records and notes was so fast that we managed a meeting at the end of each day, giving us time to plan the next day based on the records taken.

We have four young men living in one of the houses, all of whom are very active. Before the online system, notes were shared via email, and because our staff begin supporting residents as soon as they come on shift, they wouldn’t get to read updates until much later in the day. But the digital care record is picked up at the start of the day on the team member’s work tablet or smartphone. This means we can plan and do activities based on what happened the previous day.

In another home, one young man, who is non-verbal and communicates mostly through gestures and sounds, finds it particularly difficult to change routine. Recently the team started to notice he was showing an interest in doing new things. At certain times of the day, he was signalling something. They realised that it was happening when others were going out for a walk, a sign that he wanted to join them. The team only spotted this pattern because of the digital system, and the detail and timings that it allows us to record. When working with paper, by the time we got to documenting the day, the details and timings were sometimes hard to capture. Even when we did, it was hard to flag or share with colleagues.

Paper was actually a bit of a nightmare in most of our homes. The residents are often motivated by sensory needs, and ripping paper is a very satisfying sensory activity. In practice this meant staff going into a separate room, often at the end of a shift of seven to ten hours, to update records. Switching to digital has been really enriching – staff can make a note of things there and then, and don’t have to step away from residents.

Almost half of residents have previously experienced residential care, whether that is a residential school, care home, fostering or regular short breaks. All our residents have an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) or the Welsh equivalent, an Individual Development Plan.

Because we support adults aged 18 to 25 who are making decisions about work, further education and future living arrangements, this is a period of time where capturing their views is crucial to help them participate in planning their lives. This is one of the major benefits –digital recording can highlight residents’ views in real time and form strong evidence of their preferences and aspirations, even when they may have limited communication.

It helps hugely too with the requirements of EHCPs and to prepare for review meetings with social workers. The evidence that goes into those assessments is crucial. Writing reports was formerly time-consuming and we had lots of separate recording systems. Now digital technology does so much of that work for us. It’s all there in the system and so easy to pull together.

No one starts working in care because they love writing reports. They come into care to support people, and I have been amazed by how much more we can do with the people we support since we put our digital system in place.