Edinburgh City Council is using an online care booking system to improve the management of bed provision in care homes and help meet its goal of 100 per cent occupancy.

OLM Group’s e-booking system, Care Booking, allows staff to track, monitor, commission and report on the usage of block concentrated care beds in the locality.
It will also help the council with future commissioning strategies via a reporting centre that gives information on items such as unmet need and associated costs and reasons for unused beds.

The council went live with the system last month and is the first customer of the service.

Gordon Fraser, business performance manager for community care at Edinburgh Council, said: ‘Our drive to increase the use of short-break facilities in
Edinburgh means we have a need for a robust and accessible system.’

Fraser says the council’s in-house database introduced last September has increased occupancy from 58 per cent to 70 per cent, but has limitations.

‘We already use OLM’s better caring online vacancy management service BEDVACS (providing social workers with access to real time information about vacancies within registered care homes), so it is a logical step forward for us to use Care Booking to help us manage our short-break commissioning. The new system will save us time and help us towards our goal of 100 per cent occupancy,’ he said.