Shared loans service increases efficiency in Salford's community equipment services

July 2007

While Salford City Council’s equipment loan service has always been managed locally — via Salford integrated community equipment services (ICES) — wheelchair loans were historically run as a regional operation, through Withington Hospital in South Manchester.

With waiting times of 30 weeks for a standard wheelchair, however — and with 4,500 wheelchair service users to provide for — the Council decided something had to be done to improve standards. So it chose to devolve the Salford Wheelchair Service to local level, and run it from the same site as the ICES.

To further integrate equipment and wheelchair loans, the Council looked to implement a shared IT system — and in 2002 introduced Leicester-based Ethitec’s ELMS2.

A modular, multi-user system which provides support for the provision of medical aid equipment to those living in the community, ELMS2 supports the ordering, stock management, purchasing, asset management, distribution and collection of community equipment, aided by full support for multiple stores, wheelchair services, third party system links, barcoding and web based access and ordering.

Designed specifically for wheelchair and equipment loan stores, the system enables the management and triage of referrals into the service, coordination of clinics and appointment waiting lists, as well as the scheduling of new appointments and follow-ups.

Since its implementation at Salford, the system has helped improve patient care by driving down wheelchair waitinglists and increasing communication between services. It has also improved stock control, increased efficiency and, according to Ethitec, “improved the service users’ quality of life in the community”.

“Historically, wheelchair services and ICES have been separate services, even though they are very similar services”, said Ethitec Commercial Director, Simon Taylor. “With Salford, the ICES have been a customer of ours for a number of years and they decided to bring the two services together and migrate the wheelchair service to the ELMS2 system.”

Salford’s Wheelchair Service Manager, Barbara Boland, added: “ELMS2 provides management information far superior to anything we have had before. We can pull off regular reports on referrals and assessments, enabling us to allocate time more effectively. “For example, a series of 45-minute appointments can be redistributed to relieve pressure on 30-minute clinics, if the waiting times for these are greater.”

The shared system has made checking stock supplies a lot more transparent: “We have developed ELMS2 since going live and with the addition of the wheelchair service it’s made out work a lot easier”, said Salford ICES Operations Manager Pete Sandiford. “We can now look at the custom we get and the whole service becomes more transparent for the ICES team. The next step will be the creation of an online catalogue for our goods.

“We ran on a mainframe system before this, but now we can meet government targets in track and trace. We’re up to 90% with that, which is great and the system helps me out with producing reviews and demonstrating our best value.”

Occupational therapists, meanwhile, now only have to use one ordering system and can access a fuller picture of the patient clinical history, and information on waiting list entries for both assessment and equipment.

The addition of ELMS2 to Salford Wheelchair Service has also helped to improve communication between services. For example, where a wheelchair is on order for a patient, the OT can make sure that the necessary home adaptations have also been requested. This ultimately reduces waiting times as the patient will simultaneously be on the relevant request lists.

“ELMS2 was written 18 years ago for the British Red Cross Community Equipment Service in Leicester”, said Ethitec’s Simon Taylor. “Since then, we’ve been constantly developing it to make it the ideal solution for equipment and loan management. It offers a more clinical view, provides a better patient service and is more reportable for managers who need to produce service reports.

“Using ELMS2, staff can keep track of their equipment and can create and update complete patient records of patients using wheelchairs or other equipment from the ICES store.”