CareCubed delivering savings and wider benefits

iESE recently hosted a user forum for CareCubed subscribers where it heard how the tool is assisting those sourcing specialist care placements.

CareCubed is our new secure online tool, which gives clarity on the cost of specialist care and helps manage care spend - a pressing issue for more than 200 local authorities with a social services responsibility.

The new product builds on iESE’s decade of experience with the Care Funding Calculator, with the new product even better equipped to help manage the ongoing challenge presented by the cost of specialist care placements.

Attendees at the user forum in London explained how their organisations were benefitting from using CareCubed.Paul Mensah, Team Manager (Adults), Care and Support Brokerage at Oxfordshire County Council achieved significant quantifiable savings with CareCubed's predecessor, the Care Funding Calculator – around £1.2m in a year at a previous local authority. He is now implementing CareCubed at Oxfordshire County Council.

“With CareCubed we can save a lot of money for the local authority and at the same time get value for money for our service users,” he said.

Hackney Council is another organisation seeing the benefits, with Diana Sherwood, Project Manager at the authority, explaining that CareCubed makes a huge difference for providers as well as the council.

"It is a transparent tool and they realise that we’ll expect them to provide us with evidence where we don’t agree on some of their costs. CareCubed helps to maintain a good relationship and also standardise how we operate with all providers,” she said.

Rebekah Cooke, Team Manager, Community Team for Adults with a Learning Disability at Milton Keynes Council, highlighted that CareCubed brings some softer benefits too. "CareCubed is really helpful and quite user-friendly, particularly when you are trying to use it not just as a negotiating tool with providers, but when talking to family members, carers and also service users themselves about how the hours are broken down and how much time is allocated," she said.

CareCubedbrings significant enhancements to the modeling of care costs in line with changing patterns of care provision, as well asease of use on mobile devices, a fresher user interface and enhanced support for 'What If' options and analysis and collaboration within and across organisations.

It is already being used by more than 50 organisations in England and Wales and was also launched in Scotland in March. However, the successful launch of CareCubed is not the end of the journey. A CareCubed App and greater reporting and analysis functions are currently in development.

iESE is also working with users to validate CareCubed for use with specialist children's placements too. Our next user forum will take place in Manchester this autumn.

Email CareCubed@iese.org.uk or visit www.iese.org.uk/carecubed-toolto find out more