QAPlus News: 10 Year Archive:

October 2011

Seafields Fostering implement CASSI for their Independent Fostering Agency.

March 2011 iCATHI & CARI Released

Providing effective support for Care At Home the iPAD based system is sufficiently easy to use for the elderly and frail to use. Designed with memory loss sufferers in mind the system can provide a full prompt for everyday tasks, but the real innovation is that these prompts are monitored and if an item does not get a response from the user an alert can be sent to a relative, friend or Care Manager to investigate.

Another innovation is the ability for the user to request services such as a visit or meals on Wheels. The ability to save unnecessary visits and get effective feed back from the user can radically improve service levels while also reducing costs.

2010 World Class Commissioning:

Over the past 10 years, we have been providing systems to allow Local Authorities to provide parents and families with information about suitable childcare setting. We are now making this same system available to our CONI clients to allow PCT's and GP commissioning groups to provide detailed information to patients and families about providers in their areas. As part of World Class Commissioning, PCT's are now able to make Commissioning decisions based on detailed information just a few clicks away.

2010 Registration and Inspection

As the provider of software to The Healthcare Commission, NCSC, CSCI, CQC and CSSIW for 10 years and experience providing Registration and Inspection Software to we have the software your PCT and Local Authority need to monitor and help improve healthcare providers in your area. For more information, or a demo just give us a call and ask for Sean.

September 2009 West Midlands SHA

QA plus is happy to announce 2 additional QA+CONI clients in September.
Herefordshire and Dudley will benefit from the rich functionality including the Funded Care Benchmarking Stats and extensive support from our experienced consultants. In addition, West Midlands SHA are one step closer to benefiting from our exclusive SHA reporting tools developed for the East Midlands SHA and the North East SHA. They are in good company joining 50 PCTs using QA+CONI to manage CHC and FNC meaning we have more PCT experience than any other supplier - critical to the success of the implementations.

September 2009 ISPP/PKHD Aggregator Database

Essex become one of the first councils on the Parent Know How Directory! Having completed product and platform accreditation Essex County Council are one of the first authorities uplifting their Provider data to the national database. Using the QA+CIDI system to manage their Early Years Service will enable the authority continue to improve the quality and sufficiency of family support throughout Essex. Data supplied by Ofsted can be reviewed and quarantined for known problems - this helps maintain data quality sent to the national PKHD database.

August 2009 Essex County Council ISPP Accredited

After accreditation of the CIDI system for ISPP and Ofsted integration our client has now complted Acceptance Testing for the Aggregator and are now operational.

August 2009 CASSI: SWIIS Foster Care Group

With 8 offices in the UK SWIIS are another large Independent Fostering Agency that has chosen CASSI for their quality assurance and administration systems. We are working with their management team to implement the new systems in all branches in 2009. "Registration of our first three Foster Care offices in Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle was completed in 2004 and we sought, through a process of continuous improvement, to open further offices in London, Darlington, and Leeds. SWIIS is now a major provider of foster care placements throughout Scotland."

July 2009 CONI: NHS Funded Care Benchmarking

The new analyses required by the NHS pose a significant challenge for PCTs and a new CONI module has been released in time for QAPlus clients. Based on existing data the new function provides an Excel worksheet in the format requested by the NHS central project team.

July 2009 CASSI: Pathway Care Group

The roll out of the QA+CASSI system is continuing with a new branch being implemented each month or so. The next element of the project is to enhance the finance functions to meet Pathway's needs at their largest agency and head office in Cardiff.

June 2009 FEYE: Nursery Education Grants

The latest initiative to provide additional funding in deprived areas has been supported with a new release of FEYE to support "Variable Entitlement". With a number of QAPlus clients involved in this iniative we have been able to ensure maximum administration efficiency. January next year will see entitlement for 2 year olds and the system design is in hand to ensure FEYE will support this new statutory requirement.

September 2008 Australia Clients upgrade to V20

Quote from Steve Mark, Commissioner for OLSC "I would like to express my gratitude to QA Plus for our ongoing excellent working relationship. The most recent installation of the QA Plus software was a success, and we were impressed by the professionalism, and diligence of your staff member Arwel Lewis on his recent visit.

September 2008 Rochdale, Heywood & Middleton PCT

Another client for CONI in the North West will be taking advantage of the lastest release with full support for Information Governance as laid down by David Nicholson, Chief Executive of the NHS.

North East SHA

Another region will be implementing CONI across all PCTs for LD&MH and in addition two more of their clusters will be using the system for CHC&FNC administration for the new year. This order means the system will now be used by 8 North East PCTs:

Durham & Darlington

Middlesbrough, Hartlepool & Redcar

Gateshead, South Tyneside & Sunderland

March 2008 CONI leads the way!

Following 12 more orders for CONI there are now more clients using CONI than all other competitive solutions combined. Common selection criteria have been stated as "best value", "most comprehensive", "will substantially cut our administration costs", "will save us over £50,000 a year", "stable suppliers".

March 2008 East Midlands SHA

QA+CONI has been selected by the central purchasing hub re:source through Catalist competititve tender for 5 PCTs that will now use the
system for all CHC and FNC needs in the region.

March 2008 Nursery Education in Bury

Bury has joined our North West clients Cheshire and Warrington in implementing the Feye system for payment of grants.

Spring 2008 CONI Orders

Walsall and Wolverhampton join our long standing client Sandwell as West Midlands clients of CONI. In East of England Mid Essex, West Essex and North Essex have all confirmed orders for CONI and will be implementing the system in April.

7 More PCT Clients :Our QA+CONI system continues to attract PCTs that are looking for maximum financial control with minimum administrations costs. The latest release includes new facilities that enable clients to deliver improved service levels and reduce costs.

September 2007 CONI for Leicestershire & Rutland PCT

The merged areas needed a single, effective system to manage CC and FNC and after detailed investigation of the systems available CONI has been selected for implementation in October. Main selection criteria were automated administration to reduce admin costs and Provider Payment Control – together the PCT expect these benefits to provide an immediate return on investment. The system will provide services in several PCT staff locations and all administration and financial control will be transformed by using the system.

September 2007 Cassi implemented for Acorn Fostering

This Leicester based Fostering Agency has taken delivery of the system, migrated their data and completed training - all within 3 weeks.

August 2007 Cassi for Independent Foster Care Wales

Our team agrees it will be great to support a ‘local’ company and this Cardiff based agency is going to be implementing the leading edge management system to support every aspect of their business. Having spent huge amounts of time on manually producing statistics for their latest CSSIW inspection they felt it was time to stop the “tail wagging the dog” – the CASSI system will support all their care processes and record statistics automatically.

July 2007 MIRA: Academy of Care Practitioners

QA will be tailoring their existing Registration and Helpdesk systems to provide a full Membership Information Response Application. We are pleased to be supporting first year of the ACP with full administration facilities management and hosting the helpdesk and administration team at our systems centre. This will augment the service for ACP members thatcan already access static information from the ACP website with specialist consultancy on technical issue through a panel of health care experts.

July 2007 CASSI: Attachments Fostering

This small but perfectly formed agency is not seeking rapid growth but to deliver excellent standards of service to their children and also the social workers that place children with them. The CASSI system has been chosen as the best system available for quality assured administration coupled with the ability to produce the Ofsted statistics without diverting resources from the support of their carers and children.

June 2007 - QA+CONI a hit

QA Plus Ltd are very pleased to received the following feedback from one of our QA+CONI clients

“We are really pleased with the support provided by QA Plus since deciding that their system was the system we wished to use for Continuing Healthcare. The training provided has been tailor made to meet the individual requirements of each of our key users and the trainer has been excellent and extremely patient. The system has significantly improved the administration of Continuing Healthcare and we are now looking to incorporate Funded Nursing Care. The system is able to produce the information required around Continuing Healthcare and is particularly useful for audit purposes and financial reporting.”

Ashton, Leigh & Wigan PCT

June 2007 - New QA+CASSI clients

QA Plus Ltd are delighted to announce the following three Fostering Organisations have chosen to implement QA+CASSI to support their administration, recruitment, placement and management processes.

· Outlook Fostering of Kent

· Acorn Fostering of Leicester

May 2007 - London Borough of Enfield

Enfield have committed to implementing the latest version of CARIS for their helpdesk and complaint requirements in Housing.

May 2007 - Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner upgrades QA+

OISC staff will be supported with the latest version of the Licensing and Complaint systems ALIS and CARIS.

April 2007 - Bradford upgrades

The latest version of our Early years CIDI system has been implemented for Bradford Borough Council to manage their Children’s Information Service. Bradford CIS makes extensive use of the Training module to develop and improve service provision in their area.

April 2007 - General Consumer Council upgrades QA+CARIS:

With new responsibilities for complaints in respect of Water the ombudsman has upgraded their systems with new licences and the latest version of our Helpdesk and Case Management system.

March 2007 - Commission for Social Care and Inspection renewal

CSCI have extended their use of the ALIS (Registration, Inspection and Complaints Enforcement) system to manage Registration and Inspection Reporting.

March 2007 - Care Standards in Wales upgrades

CSIW have also implemented the latest version - this time in preparation for their merger with the Social Services Inspectorate.

March 2007 – Richmond installs beat test version of QA+CIDI

The London Borough of Richmond are carrying our extensive acceptance tests and training their staff for the new applications due to go live this year.

Febuary 2007 - Lloyd Register Certification ISO9001

The company completed the 3 year accreditation review this month and was passed with flying colours! Inspector comments "impressed with the management systems", "excellent continuous quality improvement processes" and "some aspects of the service are so good that negative comments - usually a good basis for improvements - are totally absent".

November 2006: New Customers

QA Plus is pleased to support new implementations for Bradford City Council, Oxford PCT and Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly PCT.

October 2006: Enhancement Release: Version 20.1

Our systems have always been optimised for fast response times - proven with up to 650 concurrent users but clients have asked for improved graphics, icons and navigation tools. To achieve this we have today announced the release of QA+ v20.1 as an upgrade option for our clients. Key features of the new release include:

· Access 2003 platform - improved technical and visual functionality

· Simple SQL option in addition to Access and SQL - faster operation at no cost

· Screen resolution standard 1024*768 - exploiting larger screens now used by clients

· Additional user workflow pane - Do lists, Navigation etc

· Operation Wizards - client parmaters to improve intuitive user experience

· Management information utility QREP for Excel extracts with sample reporting templates

Automated email generation, processing and attachment to records

July 2006: Enhancement Releases

Over the last six months we have ben working on significant upgrades of our systems. Ease of use and new functionality feature in these releases which will be rolled out to more than 3000 users in the summer of 2006.

Continuing Care CONI

Funding Early Years FEYE

Children's Information CIDI

March 2006 - Children's Information Services

Richmond CIS have chosen QA Plus and their QA+CIDI solution to cater for all of their department's services.

Although so called 'free' solutions were available, Richmond decided that their requirements could only be met by a solution that provided much broader capability and system flexibility to meet the real work environment that CIS organisations find themselves having to deal with.

March 2006 - Nursery Education Funding

Managing the provision of Funding for Early Years Education is critical in ensuring the best possible start for children. That's why Bournemouth, Cheshire and Rotherham Education Departments have chosen QA+FEYE as the best solution available to meet their current and future requirements.

March 2006 - QA+ CONI New Clients

A number of PCT's have selected QA+CONI for their continuing care management requirements. Our consultants are now working with them to ensure a smooth implementation.

Oxfordshire City
North East Oxfordshire
Cherwell Vale
Oldbury and Smethwick Ashton Leigh and Wigan
Rowley Regis
South East & South West Oxfordshire
Wednesbury & West Bromwich

December 2005 - Seminar programme to be extended into 2006

Following overwhelming demand, QA plus are pleased to announce that further Seminar dates will be available in the New Year. Dates and venues are currently being confirmed, but it is envisaged that the events will once again be run across the whole of the UK.

These events offer you an excellent opportunity to gain an understanding of how other organisations in your particular area of interest are already benefiting from the application of leading solutions, in areas such as:

Early Years e.g. CIS, Early Years, SENCO
Health care including: Continuing Care and Funded Nursing, Learning Disability
Complaints management
Adoption and Foster care
Registration and Inspection
October 2005 - QA+ Continues to improve

In a recent annual external audit of our ISO9001:2000 Quality Management System, the external auditors, Lloyds Register of Quality Assurance, were very positive about our continued commitment to quality improvement. Recent changes in the Quality Management System include a new management reporting system, revised internal audit procedures and improved helpdesk performance monitoring. Building on an already successful system, which benefits from regular external audits, QA Plus is ensuring that the prime quality objective of "providing defect free systems and services to our clients -on time and within budget" is continues to be met.

September 2005 - Office of the Legal Services Commission, New South Wales

Following our recent successful upgrade of their Complaints Management solution the OLSC sent QA Plus this feedback:

We would like to express our gratitude to QA Plus for the excellent working relationship that has been fostered. The most recent upgrade of the software was a success and we were impressed by the professionalism, diligence and good humour of your staff.”

August 2005 - Herefordshire Council takes delivery of Nursery Education Grants Solution

Herefordshire Council took delivery of the QA Plus Nursery Education Grants system on 15th August 2005, on-time and within budget. As part of the delivery, data was migrated from existing systems, allowing a seamless transition. The system now holds details of all nursery providers and all eligible children in the Herefordshire area, and with effect from the September term 2005, will support the processing of grants for 3 and 4 year old nursery placements.

June 2005 - Office of the Legal Services Commissioner - Sydney Australia

QA Plus recognise the paramount importance of statistical analysis and management reporting for organisations such as OLSC. With the latest release of QA+ CARIS, the OLSC have been able to achieve significant improvements in this critical area to ensure far greater efficiency when managing client complaints.

April 2005 Shadow (Credit Services Europe Ltd)

QA Plus has signed a 4 year outsourcing agreement for Java development resources working on a new project to deliver a web-based service utilising the Application Service Provision model. The ASP business model will enable organisations of all sizes to access sophisticated, flexible systems in a cost effective manner. Shadow is a specialist supplier of credit management services to any organisation with a credit collections requirement. Some of the prime focus sectors include Utilities, Telcos and Finance Institutions. Shadow's solutions may be implemented alongside existing client applications and link to external reference and tracing specialists providing an integrated service. As an internet system hosted by Shadow this may be used (through a browser) with any client legacy systems and aid transition to new platforms.

Dave Harris, MD of Shadow comments, "this is an important step in the delivery of our long term business growth".

QA Plus are a major IT supplier to the Public Sector and provide leading edge packaged solutions for recording and managing regulatory compliance procedures across many such organisation. In addition, QA Plus has a proven ability to develop bespoke solutions for specific client requirements.

QA Plus see this partnership with Shadow for current and future projects as part of their strategic direction as a similar outsourced business model is available to public sector clients seeking to migrate to internet based services. Furthermore, QA Plus will be offering public sector applications such as the existing licensing and complaint management systems as an ASP service.

Chris Davis, Chairman of QA Plus stated, "we are pleased to be working closely with a new company that is focused on developing important new business services".

March 2005 Care Standards Inspectorate for Wales

Following a period of steady system improvements over the last two years, March 2005 will see a major step forward for the Care Standards Inspectorate for Wales with the acceptance testing of the QA+ALIS latest release.

The updated version will include many system enhancements identified by the users over the course of the last six months at the regular floorwalking events. The release will also feature core system enhancements including the processing of visits and complaints against unregistered settings, and the introduction of an independently controlled processing function for a change of responsible individual.

The CSIW will also be taking advantage of implementing a number of recently developed QA Plus 'roadmap' functions.

December 2004 EYMI Early Years system at Bolton

Bolton Early Years department have implemented the final module of the QA+EYMI management system for Early Years. Soo France, Bolton's Information and Communications Officer said 'it (QA+) was going very well and that she was really pleased with progress'.
Bolton have now installed their full suite of EYMI modules:

· Training

· Course booking

· Qualifications

· Budget management

· SENCO processing

· Register

· Process Diary

· Document management

Bolton are also looking forward to moving to the new version of QA+ (version 12) to take advantage of the new Process Diary functions and colour selection, as well as the new email and attachments features.

December 2004 Office of the Legal Services Commissioner

OLSC in Sydney are taking delivery of a new suite of bespoke annual management reports, designed and developed by QA+ to analyse data stored in the QA+CARIS complaints management system. The information extracted will provide the data required to publish OLSC's Annual Report.

December 2004 General Consumer Council of Northern Ireland

Continued growth of GCC in Belfast has meant additional streamlining of their QA+CARIS complaints management system, training of new staff and extended use of the in-built complaints data extract to analyse their business.

November 2004 CARIS

The VB.NET version of CARIS is entering the final stages of internal testing before beta client release. The new system will operate under Web Services to provide homeworkers with a fully functional case and complaint management system. Future elements will enable web site logging of comments and complaints from the general public. This redevelopment forms part of our investment strategy for strategic QA+ IT platforms over the next 10 years.

November 2004 Registration & Inspection at CSIW

The Care Standards Inspectorate for Wales (CSIW) have commissioned a major raft of enhancements designed to maximise the benefits of their move to the new Version 12 of the QA+ system, outlined as follows:

· Process Diary re-design

· Role-based User security

· VB.Net platform

· Colour & screen size control

· SQL-based audit trails

· User generation of 'favourites' menus

· Attachments & meta-data

· Email enhancements

As well as taking all the changes available in the new version, CSIW are also having additional Complaints analyses written, and a new function is to be introduced into the Register module to allow controlled processing of Responsible Party changes, along the lines of the recent 'Change of Manager' development. Finally, at a time when most UK registration bodies are considering a change of approach to the way they undertake inspections of their Services, CSIW are forging ahead with their plans to re-structure their inspection reports and to use the QA+ Inspection module to both generate the inspection report templates, part-populated with information held on the system, and also to import and validate the completed reports for use in final report generation and production of performance and target statistics.
This is a very exciting time for Registration and Inspection generally and CSIW in particular, and we are pleased that they have the confidence to move forward with the QA+ system to help them to meet their strategic and statutory needs in the next few years.

August 2004 Core Product Strategy

A corporate plan in respect of the core package functionality has been approved as the basis for the future application of research and development. Key features are:
Process Diary: Improved process selection and confirmation will provide a more efficient user interface to save time but also improve control over vital process step approval and audit trails.
Attachments: An extended range of attachment types, indexing and support for standard and user specified metadata will improve document management within the application.
Audit Trails: Full audit trail support for detailed investigation is provided through the IT platform (eg SQL) but this is not user friendly for general 'who did what' queries in an operational environment. Key field and record updates will be trailed with a simple query interface for administrative purposes.
Extended User Security: Based on 'case' roles this will restrict access to specific 'caseworkers'.
Email Processing: Email generation will be extended to receipt and processing of emails within the QA+ application.
User Interfaces: User specific favourite menus, standard frame sizes and positions, extended colour control and short cut navigation from screen to screen will improve user productivity and reduce fatigue.

April 2004 Somerset County Council

Somerset County Council upgraded their complaints management system to the latest version.

April 2004 Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner

OISC have enhanced the QA+CARIS complaints management system to monitor immigration advisers who have not yet registered under the legislation.

June 2003 Office of the Legal Services Commissioner

OLSC in Sydney upgraded their case management system to the latest version. Responsible as the ombudsman for legal services throughout New South Wales the system processes more than 3000 enquiries and complaints a year.

April 2003 Police Complaints Authority web project

The PCA has taken delivery of the beta test version of QA+CASI which has now been web enabled and integrated with their own website to provide direct complaint entry facilities for the public.

As part of their piloting of new systems for the Independent Police Complaints Commission the new application is expected to provide compliance with government requirements for internet interfaces.

April 2003 Ealing adopts CASSI

The London Borough of Ealing are implementing the Adoption & Foster Care management system within QA+ for their authority.
Development to integrate with their Finance and Client Index systems will ensure the new systems provide a seamless service for their clients.

March 2003 Office of Immigration Services Commission

The OISC has ordered further services to support the development of the QA+ALIS system installed for their core operational needs.

March 2003 Care Standards In Wales

CSIW have ordered additional QA+ALIS licences for their Registration & Inspection service. Responsible for all service establishments in Wales the Assembly is implementing new systems throughout the department.

March 2003 Bolton orders CIDI & EYMI for Early Years

The QA+ system is to be implemented by Bolton for their EYDCP Service to improve their service. The system will be enhanced to provide further support for the Recruitment and Training of service providers and will be used by 20 or so staff within the authority