The seemingly impossible task of improving service levels whilst reducing costs will be achieved as a result of the Council’s adoption of the eziTracker homecare management service. The service electronically records the time and attendance of homecare staff, and then automatically forwards the data to social services for online supervision and approval for payment. The council can expect to save significant amounts of time and money, by removing the back office costs in processing paper timesheets, and reducing overpayments for visits. eziTracker hm will also enhance the delivery of homecare services by giving management the ability to see actual attendance in real time, with automatic alerts raised if a carer fails to arrive at a client’s home as scheduled. Paul Griffiths, the Homecare Project Manager, explained: “Herefordshire Council are determined to realise efficiency savings across all departments and Social Services are no exception. Our decision to use eziTracker homecare monitoring will help us to reduce costs whilst giving us more control over the delivery and payment of homecare services provided to Herefordshire residents. Moreover the new system will also offer an important safeguard for the county’s lone working homecare staff. If a carer fails to log out from a home visit an alert will automatically be raised and a supervisor can take steps to make sure that the carer is ok.“ The eziTracker service is currently used by over 26 Local Authorities in the UK and Herefordshire Council selected eziTracker hm as the preferred solution, following a competitive tender process and a 3 month pilot scheme involving both eziTracker and CM2000. Jonathan Hudson, MD of Panztel said: “In today’s challenging economic environment all Local Authorities need to find new ways of bringing efficiency savings and the eziTracker service is specifically designed to enable this. Herefordshire Council should be applauded for embracing the benefits of new technology in order to improve service levels and increase their return on spending.”