Shockingly 59% of social workers are spending less than 3 hours per day with clients, struggling with desk based administration and lack of supporting technology, according to a report commissioned by TotalMobile™.
In the report titled ‘Mobile Working: ‘The Missing Link In the Future of Social Care Delivery’ 61% of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the amount of time in their working day they could actually spend with clients. 75% of respondents said they were struggling to meet the demands of their daily case loads, with not enough staff support and little or no technology. This was having an effect on overall morale and work/life balance.
Although encouragingly 60% of respondents said that their organisations had made some sort of attempt to introduce mobile working, only 10% said it had made any significant different to their workload. The key reason for this was that only 3% of organisations had actually deployed an independent, purpose-built mobile working app. The vast majority were dependent on smartphones and laptops, which lead to slow response times and lack of connections. This meant they could not access files as and when they were needed out on the road.
Employing extra agency staff has been seen as a ‘quick fix’ that is not sustainable in terms of ongoing budget cuts and does not provide any consistency between the social worker and the client.
“It is shocking to find that out of an 8 hour working day, many social workers could only find 3 hours to spend with patients,” commented Colin Reid, Chief Executive, TotalMobile. “Organisations can obviously see the benefits of effective mobile working, but have been unable to deploy the correct strategy to make it work. As service demands increase radical changes are needed to put better work processes in place, and the success of this will hinge on mobile working”.
“We have shown that effective deployment of mobile technology can save 1 – 2 hours per day, alleviating the burden of time consuming paperwork. This equates to a significant increase in workforce capacity. Better integrated care and joined up care is essential. Only by providing an authentic mobile solution designed around the way people work will organisations reap the benefits and cope with the care pressures the future brings”.
An astonishing 92% of respondent said that there is no way they will be able work in the same way 5 years from now. “It is paramount that management put a workable mobile working strategy in place now. If they don’t they will fail to keep up with demand and we will see social care services crumble as frontline workers struggle to cope”.
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