At ReferAll, we’re always keen to find out more about our customers. Daniel McDermott, Health Team Leader at Sevenoaks District Council, supports the One You Service in West Kent, and led on the transfer to using our online referral management software.As the main point of contact for Sevenoaks District it’s crucial he has a clear overview of the referral data. Here’s what Dan had to say….
Q : What is the value of using Software as a Service (SaaS) to manage your services?
A: The One You Kent service is funded annually by Kent County Council’s Public Health Team. The “guarantee” on our funding only exists within the financial year and we do anxiously await confirmation of new funding ahead of the new financial year. A subscription model for our client database works really well for us as we are able to commit to costs against our service during the guaranteed funded period only. This limits the risk placed on the One You Kent service if the funding for our service was ever withdrawn and enables us to wind-down the service efficiently without any ongoing risk to the service.
In addition, the subscription model is really efficient and effective for managing our lifestyle advisors particularly where we might see in-year transition of staff members.
Q : Has ReferAll helped you to communicate with service users more swiftly whilst reducing administration time for your teams?
A: Our lifestyle advisors have found great benefit in using the email and SMS functions from ReferAll to communicate with clients and notify them of upcoming appointments. This functionality is supporting the administration of the service and allowing our advisors to devote more time with client appointments and supporting other administrative elements of the service.
Q : I understand you work closely with your commissioners to report service outcomes consistently across the 4 localities in West Kent? Tell me about that?
A: This has been a major improvement for us in West Kent in comparison to our previous process. ReferAll’s monitoring and evaluation functionality gives us the ability to quickly and efficiently demonstrate the impact of our service to our funders. However in addition to this, the additional monitoring functionality allows us to review clients and provide effective feedback to our Advisors.
Q: You have been working with us for almost a year now, what has your experience been?
A: It’s been a really positive experience, the support service offered by ReferAll gives our Advisors the ability to get quick feedback on using the database if they need support. We’ve been able to implement and mobilise this new database with our Advisors really easily and we are generally receiving very positive feedback about the new database.
Daniel McDermott
Health Team Leader at Sevenoaks District Council