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Wigan Council: QuickAction in adult social care

Wigan Council's adult social care (ASC) team, in partnership with Agilisys Transform, has co-developed a suite of artificial intelligence (AI) powered tools designed to streamline back-office processes and enhance the efficiency of social care delivery.

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Overview

Wigan Council's adult social care (ASC) team, in partnership with Agilisys Transform, is driving a digital transformation. Together, they have co-developed a suite of AI-powered tools designed to streamline back-office processes and enhance the efficiency of social care delivery.

These innovative tools address a range of critical tasks, including automating needs assessments, generating meeting minutes, streamlining case audits, providing instant support through an AI chatbot, and analysing qualitative survey responses.

By actively involving social care staff in the development process, Wigan Council and Agilisys have ensured that the AI solutions are tailored to the specific needs of the ASC team.

As these tools progress through their initial stages and pilot phases, Wigan Council anticipates a significant reduction in administrative burdens, allowing their staff to devote more time to direct resident care and support.

Wigan's approach started with workshops to explore how AI could streamline the ASC team's workload. These sessions identified time-consuming administrative tasks that hindered direct contact with residents. Wigan partnered with Agilisys Transform to develop, train, and improve solutions. The ASC team's invaluable insights have guided the process, highlighting specific challenges and potential solutions.

The suite of tools developed

QuickAction has been used by Agilisys to address the administrative challenges identified by Wigan’s ASC team. Their approach has various tools with a range of functionality to provide wraparound support for social workers:

  • Needs assessment administration: A tool was created to automate the completion of needs assessment forms from transcribed mobile phone recordings. This significantly reduced the time-consuming manual process, freeing up the ASC team to spend more time with residents.
  • Meeting minute taking: QuickAction summarises meeting transcripts and produces minutes in the correct format and style. Automating this process has halved the time spent on minute-taking, helping to meet statutory deadlines.
  • Case auditing: QuickAction aids in case auditing by reviewing historical case notes and identifying areas for improvement. It can highlight instances where cases may not have been sufficiently person-centred or focused on residents' strengths.
  • Textual survey response analysis: Wigan receives approximately 1,800 adult user and 900 carer survey submissions on paper annually. Previously, there was no capacity to process free-text responses. QuickAction converts handwriting to digital text and analyses these submissions.

The tool showing benefit beyond social care. The tool is also used by the housing team to comply with the Regulator for Social Housing's requirement to demonstrate interaction with tenants and address key questions. Over three months, 4,500 tenant responses were received, which could now be analysed in aggregate by the council.

Engagement

Wigan's approach has prioritised early and ongoing engagement throughout the development and adoption of these tools. Key engagement activities include:

  • A dedicated champion group of 20 social workers was established to discuss and test the tool's development.
  • The ASC team collaborated with Agilisys to define the chatbot's scope and ensure it could effectively extract information from Wigan's website and present it to residents in a user-friendly manner.
  • Business support officers and chairs conducted extensive testing to optimise the tool's performance. Their feedback led to enhancements to provide more detailed minutes, aligning with team requirements.

This collaborative approach has fostered mutual understanding between the teams. Agilisys gained valuable insights into social care, enabling them to tailor their solutions to the specific needs of the ASC team.

The ongoing partnership between the ASC team and Agilisys has facilitated internal engagement. A naturally engaged audience, recognising the technology's potential benefits, was essential to the council's approach. To support staff who may not have been initially engaged, face-to-face and remote sessions were conducted to explain the process, and requirements, and provide necessary support.

Careful consideration has been given to engaging service users and obtaining their consent before utilising these technologies. A communications plan is being developed to inform service users about the use of generative AI, and broader communications efforts are underway to prepare for the chatbot's rollout.

Initial impact

Despite AI usage within the council being in the early stages they have already begun to see early benefits of adoption. Efficiencies have been generated through the different tools. The automation of meeting minutes is estimated to have saved 107 days of work for staff- allowing their time to be spend more valuably.

Wigan has also estimated that the council will see other beneficial outcomes such as reduced staff sickness, less need for recruitment, and fewer overtime claims. The survey analysis tool has also provided insight into residents' thoughts which have not been previously possible, in addition to saving a great amount of time. More details on the initial impacts and return on investment are planned to follow after the conclusion of the pilot stages.

Agilisys has benefited from its close collaboration with Wigan by gaining a deeper understanding of the challenges within social care. This partnership has led to the development of Agilisys' understanding of the human elements of social care, which has been instrumental in refining the technology to enhance, rather than replace, the human touch that is central to social care. This insight has enabled Agilisys to create improved tools that align with these principles. These insights have the potential to benefit the wider local government sector.

Governance and risk management

Wigan has implemented several measures to govern the use of AI and manage associated risks. The council's Generative AI Working Group, comprising cross-functional members from digital, information governance, and audit teams, meets regularly to inform decisions and processes related to AI. This group oversees all use cases, categorising them as red (prohibited), amber (high risk), or green (low risk) to facilitate effective risk management. Additionally, the group has been instrumental in developing a generative AI policy and ensuring compliance with key procedures, including timely completion of Data Protection Impact Assessments. The group is currently reviewing its process for Equality Impact Assessments.

To further strengthen governance, the Joint Architecture Group conducts technical reviews of solutions before development, ensuring they adhere to "secure by design" principles.

Wigan actively participates in broader policy discussions, serving as the Lead Council for the Co-operative Council Innovation Network and co-developing a value-led AI Guidance Framework. The council has also collaborated with Greater Manchester Combined Authority on their Principles for the Use of Automated Decision-Making Systems.

Next steps

As most of Wigan's projects are currently in the pilot phase, the program aims to consolidate and embed the adoption of these tools. Through these pilots, staff have identified areas for further improvement, and the council continues to collaborate with Agilisys to implement necessary changes. Further analysis will be conducted to quantify the benefits and impact of AI adoption.

Wigan is also developing additional technologies, such as a chatbot. While the ASC service has a digital front door, it still receives numerous inquiries about information readily available on the council's website. A chatbot is being developed to provide advice and guidance in a helpful and intuitive manner, capable of understanding nuanced questions and responding in a human-like way.