Councils sign up for Liquidlogic support

Cumbria, Rochdale and Lewisham councils have signed up to the PROTOCOL technology to try to enhance their provision of adult social care services.

The integrated adult system (IAS) aims to improve communication between the various health agencies dealing with vulnerable adults, particularly the elderly.

It can reduce the amount of time elderly people spend in hospital by making sure they are looked after in the community instead.

So far, Leeds-based Liquidlogic provides support to 13 adult services departments across Britain; a figure which is expected to grow in response to the Government's personalisation agenda, which includes a strategic shift towards early intervention and prevention.

Denise Harrison, Liquidlogic's sales and marketing director,

said: "Councils are increasingly focused on modernising their adults' services ahead of the Government's personalisation agenda, and interest in Liquidlogic's IAS is on the increase.

"Liquidlogic's proven track record in the children's services market means that councils are confident that IAS will deliver an intuitive system that can be easily integrated across multiple agencies."

Liquidlogic created the integrated adult system after its success in the children's health and social care sector.

Its software provides an "early warning system" which helps to protect around 100,000 vulnerable children.

An alert can be triggered by a messaging system if two people raise concerns about a child in the space of a week.

As a result, steps can be taken by social services to ensure they are kept out of harm's way.

Ms Harrison stresses that the system is not a substitute for the skills of trained professionals. But it could help to improve social workers' performance by enabling them to raise the alarm.

Liquidlogic, which has a turnover of 6.5m, was co-founded by Ms Harrison and Ted Brierley in 2000.

They had previously run another software company, Image Systems Europe, which was sold for 4m.