About Skills for Care

Skills for Care (SFC) work with more than 17,000 adult social care employers and other partners to develop the skills, knowledge and values of the 1.5 million workers in the adult social care sector in England. By working with employers and sharing best practice, Skills for Care raise quality and standards across the whole sector and help ensure dignity and respect are at the heart of service delivery.

The Challenge

In 2014 the Care Act was introduced. When it comes into force in 2016, The Care Act will completely change the way social care is delivered by local authorities and other organisations. This will mean large scale changes to Adult Care Services across England and the work those involved in the sector will do.

SFC offer support to Local Authorities preparing for the Care Act. One of the tools available to providers of social care services, is the workforce capacity planning model (WCPM). The model supports workforce re-development on a stage by stage basis and recommends specific resources depending on the stage being undertaken. Behind the WCPM there is a huge variety of resources, including case studies, websites, documents, reports and other tools.

The Solution

We worked with SFC to design a questionnaire that reduced the WCPM into multiple questions. Survey participants select one or more areas, and answer a series of questions to assess their preparedness in that area.

Snap analyses the responses and calculates a score based on the answer combinations. The score determines which case studies, websites, documents, reports, and other tools and resources are most appropriate for the survey taker.

On completing the questionnaire participants are prompted to enter an email address. They are then sent an automated and personalised email report, containing tailored recommendations to improve their preparations in specific areas, and links to resources specific to the answers they have given.

View an example of an email report

Conclusion

SFC are able to target resources for the WCPM effectively. Users are able to consider the implications of the act, assess their preparations, and are sign-posted to the most appropriate resources.

SFC are able to collected aggregated data and see an overview of how well prepared local authorities are for the upcoming Act. They are also able to improve their understanding of where they need to focus attention, in terms of developing new tools or other instruments. Anonymised performance information can then be reported to the Department of Heath.

“Skills for Care needed to sign-post professionals in the Adult Care sector to appropriate resources, and give them a feel for how well they are doing in preparing for the changes that will come as a result of the Care Bill. Meanwhile, we were also interested in seeing how well prepared the sector is as a whole – to help us prioritise our services.

Working with Snap Surveys we were able to develop a reporting service that enables users to immediately locate appropriate resources and receive tailored recommendations, based on answering a few carefully targeted questions.”

Jim Thomas
Programme Head – Workforce Innovation

Our experienced research and training teams can help with any aspect of your survey project – from survey design and data collection, to analysis and reporting. We work with a diverse range of clients in voluntary, public and private sectors and our services are open to everyone, not just Snap Survey Software users.

Call 603 610 8700 or email ustraining@snapsurveys.com