As we come to the end of 2021 and look forward to the Christmas and new year break – and perhaps a mulled wine and mince pie – we wanted to look back across the projects and work that CC2i and partners have achieved, in what was quite simply one of the most challenging years on record. 

2021 started in lockdown. We all have to admit it was a miserable new year, and most people just wanted to get back to work and forget the ‘Christmas that never was’. As CC2i returned to our desks, we were wholly focused on delivering the Social Care Digital Innovation Accelerator (SCDIA), which we were in the midst of running on behalf of the LGA and NHS Digital.

With 12 weeks until the three projects had to be delivered, technical partners were in full development mode, collaborating councils were poised to start user testing and CC2i was busy developing the business cases and commercial models. 

By the end of January the first SCDIA project Hospital to Home (H2H) – a completely new digital approach to managing safe Discharge to Assess (D2A) – was ready for user testing in the five local authority partners: North Lincolnshire, Southend, Herefordshire, Sutton & Birmingham – having been built by technical partner Maldaba.

February saw the second of the SCDIA projects deliver a wide range of co-designed videos to support adults with learning disabilities around employability, wellbeing and mental health. Having worked closely with subject matter experts at Barking & Dagenham, Telford & Wrekin, West Sussex, Haringey, Peterborough and Cambridgeshire, technical partner AutonoMe adapted their proven virtual support model to widen content and support to hundreds of learners – backed up by a compelling business case.

March was our busiest month by a long shot. The SCDIA had to end by March 31st and a separate ASC collaboration focused on Digital Care & Support Assessment was also wrapping up. Technical partners Looking Local working with council partners including Dorset, Oxfordshire, Medway, Solihull, Lincolnshire and Coventry delivered BetterCare Support, with over 40 co-designed animations embedded in an intuitive self service platform to support people self assess across the 10 areas of the Care Act. 

With the SCDIA officially over, April was meant to be easier, but it was not the case. The third SCDIA project was only just delivering it’s solution, delayed somewhat by the pandemic. MAST – the Multi Agency Safeguarding Tracker – a data driven approach to sharing safeguarding information in real time to organisations with mandatory safeguarding responsibility – was production ready. Built by public sector data experts Policy in Practice in partnership with Walsall Council, West Midlands Police, WM Fire & Rescue and Walsall Community NHS Trust, backed up again by an impressive business case.

Having delivered four critical adult social care systems by Spring and keeping hundreds of ASC professionals abreast of the progress along the way, May saw CC2i and partners move into scaling and sustaining mode. Webinars, demonstrations, 1:1 engagement saw nearly all 152 councils with ASC responsibility engage with one or more of the collaboratively, co-designed solutions. 

June saw CC2i take a moment to reflect on five full years of public sector co-funding and council led collaboration. We are a small, tight-knit team, who are really proud to have actively worked with over 70 public sector bodies (so far) to co-design new, innovative digital solutions to shared public sector service delivery challenges. To date we have helped deliver 15 new digital approaches and solutions, co-funded by the sector to the tune of just over £1.6million. All of that in just five years (we’re going to say it ourselves – we think this is pretty good going!), but moreover this is proof that our public sector collaboration and the co-funding model really works. 

July was all about automated telephony and a new service Contact&Connect. Working with the technical partner Voicescape, we ran a new council led collaboration to find out how this proven technology could support ASC services. Three councils joined the project to co-fund and co-design new services, with each council identifying the use case they wanted to focus on:

• Gateshead Council chose to proactively support people discharged on the Intermediate Care pathway, once their care package had come to an end (service just launched last week); 
• Sunderland City Council focused on increasing the return rate of community loan equipment (launched in Sept with incredible results); and 
• Kirklees Council focused on Private Rental Inspections & Enforcement (going live in Jan 2022).

The inevitable slow down during late July-August saw some of us take a break, but work progressed and as we entered September we were back up and running focused on delivering one of our most successful online events to date. October 1st saw over 150 ASC professionals tune in CC2i’s Festival of Health and Social Care. A day of debate, discussion and demonstrations with technical partners, councils and public sector colleagues discussing solution design, the challenges within social care and the benefits of digital approaches.

We didn’t fully recognise it before, but Autumn seems to be ‘award season’, and with MAST (Walsall Council & the West Midlands) having won the award for Data for Good Initiative of the Year at the British Data Awards 2021 back in May, further nominations and awards rolled in. Hospital to Home was nominated for awards by LGC, HSJ, Digital Technology Leaders and Laing Buisson. Dapian – an information governance collaboration focused on digital DPIAs which we brought together in 2019/2020, won the Digital Leaders Impact Awards in the Trust, Ethics & Privacy category, as well as two IRMS awards for Innovation and Best Team. To top it all, CC2i was named as one of the Digital Leaders Top 10 Digital SMEs of 2021 – which really meant a lot. 

With our collaborative focus mainly in ASC, we shouldn’t forget the training and support CC2i has continued to deliver to over 50 public sector partners in the cyber security domain. Working closely with a new cohort of London Boroughs, this year has also seen new integrated scenario based cyber training and customisation capabilities within the Fundamentals suite. 

November saw the sign off of the Care Xchange collaboration that we have been working on for some time with North Yorkshire & Sunderland, alongside the technical partner Labour Xchange. The platform has been carefully co-designed with both councils and not only supports economic regeneration, but also addresses the current crisis in care provision and the care workforce. 

December has already seen a number of workshops around Hospital to Home and MAST, as well as working again with Sunderland to co-design new automated telephony services to support Pathway 0 patients and wheelchair services. 

In addition CC2i is leading on an Innovation in Social Care survey on behalf of the London Office of Technology & Innovation, scanning the market for new, innovative, digital, social care solutions. With the care crisis deepening, local authorities and health partners looking for new ways to deliver their services in the face of extreme and growing demand, it feels like a good time to take stock of what innovation is out there and understand how digital can support the sector as we move into 2022. 

We look forward to the survey results and working with local authorities, their health and care partners and technical suppliers to help support social care – and other public services – in 2022.  

Until then Happy Christmas, Happy Holidays and the very best to you all for 2022 from the CC2i team.