CareLineLive has been an assured supplier of digital social care records since 2023. As part of this process suppliers commit to continuous improvement of their software’s functionality with rigorous checks in place to ensure that each year’s set of new standards are reached. The new standards for 2024 include GP Connect integration (more of that below) as well as a number of other requirements which our development team has been hard at work achieving.
The DSCR Standards describe the technical specifications which represent best practice for digital social care record solutions. With local and national government backing as well as NHS accreditation, home care providers are increasingly specifying DSCR Assured Suppliers in their choice of software provider given the additional reassurance and robustness that a fully compliant system offers.
The twelve standards that CareLineLive meet are:
GP Connect
Integration with GP Connect allows authorised health and social care workers in England and Wales to access their patient’s GP records, such as problems and issues, allergies and adverse reactions, medications, and more. GP Connect may only be used for Direct Care purposes.
In order to use GP Connect, your organisation will need to be CQC registered, have a current “standards met” NHS DSPT self-assessment and sign the National Data Sharing Arrangement for GP Connect.
More on GP Connect within CareLineLive here.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
An essential for any modern business, this standard ensures that you have the appropriate processes and protections in place to react to adverse events or disasters. It covers everything from flooding offices to a complete failure of our cloud hosting provider.
CareLineLive has long had Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans in place, and test them regularly to ensure we’re ready to react quickly when we need to.
Clinical Safety
When building healthcare software, it’s important that appropriate consideration is given to potential hazards and mitigations caused by the application.
DCB0129 is an NHS Digital Standard for use in the manufacture of Health IT systems, and promotes comprehensive and proactive risk identification and management when developing the software.
We have appointed a Clinical Safety Officer to perform an objective evaluation of existing CareLineLive offerings, and will be directly involved in the design and development of new features that could cause clinical risks.
Commercial
The Commercial standard underpins all commercial activity relating to the purchasing of CareLineLive through the Digital Social Care Records catalogue. It ensures we are transparent, fair, and have clear guidelines when engaging with customers (like yourselves!)
Data Migration
If you’re thinking about moving to CareLineLive from another DSCR assured supplier, or from CareLineLive to another, the data migration standard helps to make the process as smooth as possible by setting out a number of requirements that ensure completeness of data, transparency of data schemas, and strict project management processes.
To meet this standard, we’ve developed a new suite of tools to enable to you download a fully documented data extract whenever you want – whether it’s for your own backups for peace of mind, a custom reporting solution, or you’ve decided that CareLineLive isn’t the right fit for your company.
Data Standards
Getting into the nitty gritty with how data is captured, stored and processed within a DSCR solution. This standard focusses on interoperability of data between different systems, and includes both the PRSB About Me and Personalised Care and Support Plan standards.
It stipulates the use of common identifiers (such as NHS numbers for patients/service users, and ODS codes for organisations), as well as ensuring nationally recognised terminology systems are used (such as SNOMED CT).
- About Me Standard (PRSB)
This standard, endorsed by the Professional Records Standards Body supports sharing important details about a person and how they want to receive care - Personalised Care and Support Plan Standard (PRSB)
Another PRSB Standard which enables the right information for people to manage their own care. This standard is a requirement under Data Standards
CareLineLive has achieved Level 3 – the highest possible – in both PRSB standards and in terms of quality our conformance level was 84.5%. 40% is the pass mark.
Hosting and Infrastructure
As a service hosted on a public cloud (AWS), the Hosting and Infrastructure standard ensures that all data being processed is done so in line with the NHS Digital Cloud Security Principles.
It ensures that suppliers have performed a Data Risk modelling exercise, has the appropriate certifications (such as ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus), and has an appropriate service level classification.
Information Governance
The focus of Information Governance is ensuring that appropriate controls are in place to ensure that sensitive personal data is kept confidential, is accurate, and available to only authorised users when required.
It covers logging in, permissions, privacy controls and alerts, auditing, and everyone’s favourite: GDPR.
Non-Functional Questions
This standard asked us to describe how CareLineLive works, not what it does. It covers a lot of areas and processes that are transparent to you as an end-user, but still are important considerations when building a software application.
It includes:
- System requirements
- Accessibility and User Interface standards
- Performance, availability, resilience and scalability
- Backups and recoverability
- Information governance and security
- Legal regulations, compliance and auditing
- and more!
Testing
Similar to the non-functional questions standard, the elements being assessed in the testing standard will be transparent to you as an end-user, but ensures that we’re making every effort to deliver a high-quality and defect free product.
The different types of testing being assessed include quality assurance and quality control, automation and security and vulnerability testing.
Each type of testing needs to have appropriate process and policies in place to ensure that defects are identified and rectified in a timely manner.
Sending and receiving email is a core function of any modern business (as much as some of us may hate it). CareLineLive utilises email for a number of functions including notifications, delivery of documents and eSignatures.
The email standard ensures we’re using best practices with regards to the secure delivery of emails, ensuring that emails cannot be intercepted or spied on by malicious third parties.
What other benefits are there to working with a DSCR approved supplier?
The UK government has provided a further £25 million in funding to encourage home care providers to adopt digital social care records. In February 2024 some 63% of providers had a DSCR in place and they are increasingly being seen as essential tools by councils and regulators.
Most ICSs offer easy-to-access grant funding which can pay up to half the first year’s costs of implementing an Assured Solution if you are a home care provider currently using more traditional processes. This may also include the costs of training and hardware. Book a demo with CareLineLive’s sales team for more information.
How to apply for DSCR funding with CareLineLive
The form to start this process can be found here.
