Automated Telephony highlighted in Council CQC Inspection Reports
Contact&Connect is an automated telephony platform designed to engage with people who draw on care and support services. Now moving into its 5th year, thousands of calls and texts are automated every week, with scripts designed by councils to engage with people and understand their experience and act more quickly on any issues that they may be facing.
Councils use Contact&Connect to bring feedback in to underpin a range of services including supporting a proportionate approach to Annual Reviews, driving the return of community loan equipment, supporting people with telecare equipment, regularly contacting people during Reablement, and more generally engaging with people about the care and support services they are receiving.
The approach has been cited in a growing number of CQC reports as an innovative approach to gathering ASC feedback at scale and we wanted to share just a few areas where the calls have been shown to increase engagement, keep in regular contact with people who draw on care and support services, as well as how the calls are helping to bring lived experience and feedback into strategy, planning, learning and service improvement.
Wiltshire Council – Learning from feedback (p82)
“People and partners’ feedback was sourced through co-production and data collection.The local authority also had a ‘contact and connect’ service, an automated call service to gather peoples’ feedback following each interaction with the local authority. They sought views around experiences of adult social care, understanding the market, quality of services, contract management, and safeguarding enquiries. We found people’s feedback was an integral part of the design, delivery and evaluation of strategy, services and Practice improvement.”
https://www.cqc.org.uk/care-services/local-authority-assessment-reports/wiltshire-0125
Sunderland City Council – Key Findings (p12)
“Staff told us about an app which had been designed to carry out reviews of care and support plans and equipment in non-complex cases. If the person consented, they received a call from the app. There were mitigations to ensure a member of staff called the person if the app was not successful at making contact. People gave positive feedback of their experiences using the app.”
Sunderland City Council – Provision and impact of intermediate care & reablement (p23)
The local authority performance indicators show that most discharges from reablement services were to home and with outcomes met. The local authority told us they used better care funds to provide the right care in the right place at the right time. Examples of this included increased capacity within discharge to assess teams (D2A), implementation of therapy team to support people in residential and nursing homes, increased use of personal assistants to support non-complex discharges and improved use of automated telephony post discharge.
Sunderland City Council – Ensuring quality of local services (p45)
The local authority had commissioned and implemented an automated telephony app to expand its ongoing communication and feedback with customers. The automated call took place annually and supported the completion of the annual review. It also gathered feedback on the assessment and care planning process.
Sunderland City Council – Continuous learning improvement & professional development (p76)
Staff told us that they felt listened to. They gave examples such as the Telephony App to demonstrate how the senior leadership team had listened to frontline workers about barriers and challenges to practice and then taken positive action to make improvements.
https://www.cqc.org.uk/care-services/local-authority-assessment-reports/sunderland-0525
Medway Council – “Access to equipment and home adaptations” (p23)
Staff told us they had regular meetings to identify ways and initiatives to improve services. One example was they identified a rubber foot for walking aids that could help reduce falls. They had also introduced an auto-telephony service to encourage the return of equipment, spoken to charity shops, placed adverts and called people to discuss whether their equipment was still required. All of which had improved equipment return rates.
https://www.cqc.org.uk/care-services/local-authority-assessment-reports/medway-0125
Stoke Council – Timeliness of assessments, care planning and reviews (p13)
The local authority was taking steps to manage and reduce waiting times for assessment, care planning and reviews, this included improving the performance culture in teams, reducing demand through the front door, team days to contact people waiting for care and investing in the review team. There had been some progress with the median time for Care Act assessment but the maximum time people waiting for assessment was still 375 days in February 2025. People who had care packages and were waiting for reviews were contacted by an automated telephony system that checked that their care package was still meeting their needs and raised an alert to the front door team if there was an issue.
Stoke Council – Safety management (p45)
Safety was a priority for everyone. The local authority understood the risks to people across their care journeys; risks were identified and managed proactively. Though there was a waiting list for Care Act and Occupational Therapy assessment and review, there were clear risk management processes within this. An automated telephony project called people on the review list for welfare calls to support screening of needs while people waited for review.
https://www.cqc.org.uk/care-services/local-authority-assessment-reports/stokeontrent-0625
