Keeping track of and replenishing community loan equipment is both complex and expensive. Although many of the bigger items are returned once they are no longer required, numerous smaller items are never returned, resulting in substantial costs for the council and their healthcare partners. Additionally, many individuals continue to use reablement or rehabilitation aids even after their needs have shifted, or when the equipment has been upgraded or requires replacement, which councils are often unaware of until the person reaches a crisis point.

Contact&Connect: Community Loan Recall was created to address this issue – the automated telephony service keeps in touch with service users on a regular basis to ensure equipment is returned when appropriate, that it is still working properly and continues to meet their care and support needs.

With 98% of the adult population owning either a mobile phone or landline, Contact&Connect: CLR automates contact with service users on a quarterly basis, driving the return of equipment which can be qualified both in terms of budget and carbon savings. Real-time responses allow equipment to quickly be brought back into the system for recycling and reuse, as well as supporting the identification of issues before they escalate. In terms of organising collections, the system can either automatically connect people into a call centre to arrange a collection, proactively send them a map link to their nearest drop off point, and/or generate a report to inform a telephone follow up call.