Finance Implementations during Covid-19

Implementing a whole new adult social care system at Bedford and Croydon Council would have been a considerable project at the best of times, but when the pandemic hit, everything had to change.

Our plan was to transfer from a Swift financial system to Liquidlogic and ContrOCC, including the provider portal in March 2020. When the first lockdown was announced, we quickly realised our approach needed to adapt immediately.  

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Despite the lockdown, we still went live with the new system as planned - but we had to change our whole support package quickly and effectively to support our client. What would have been face-to-face meetings, physical floor-walking, managing of the help desk, and visible on-site support for example, urgently needed to change to digital solutions like Skype, MS Teams and traditional telephone calls throughout each day (and often each night!) to ensure the staff at Bedford and Croydon had our full support.

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Excellent coordination, versatility and successful partnership working were essential to overcome the massive challenges that we had to manage, as well as the creation of digital help guides and support packages to support and upskill Croydon’s staff, many of whom had little IT experience.

Other challenges we quickly needed to adapt to included the management of Covid-related payments and financial support measures introduced by the Government. As our implementation covered residential homes, nursing homes, hospitals and home care for example, we had to make sure we creatively used the new systems to implement and process these critical payments and new measures.

Managing this project was tough but we continued to support the Council throughout the pandemic despite the significant added pressure it created.