RIVIAM is awarded funding by Innovate UK to enhance our new social prescribing platform, RIVIAM Wellbeing
RIVIAM has been awarded £48,450 funding by Innovate UK to enhance our new social prescribing platform, RIVIAM Wellbeing.
The Wellbeing platform is currently used in Bath and North East Somerset (BaNES) by Virgin Care, BaNES Council and many third sector organisations, including Age UK BaNES, Citizens Advice BaNES and Bath Mind, to co-ordinate the provision of food, mental health, wellbeing and welfare support for vulnerable people during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Since April 2020, approximately 1500 cases and just under 6500 calls have been managed quickly and efficiently by these partner organisations collaborating together online using RIVIAM in a Compassionate Community Hub.
“People only want to tell their story once and to receive a timely, personalised response from different agencies working together. But it’s currently really hard for organisations using different IT systems to share information securely and co-ordinate care. Also, providers in the third sector don’t have the digital capabilities to communicate easily with their health and social care partners.
With RIVIAM's Multi-agency Referral Hub service, organisations in different sectors can collaborate as one team harnessing their collective power to deliver for people in need. The funding from Innovate UK allows us to develop a new way for multi-agency care to be delivered making taxpayers money go further.” Paul Targett, MD, RIVIAM Digital Care
“Providing a system whereby partners can share information securely and work more collaboratively has been and will continue to be crucial to the success of the Hub. This has transformed how we have worked in partnership.
RIVIAM has contributed to the success of the Hub because all partners can track the support we offer to individuals to best meet their needs. It also enables staff across all organisations to work more flexibly whether that is from the Hub or at home. We welcome this additional funding that has been secured.” Claire Thorogood, Head of Contracting & Performance, BaNES Council
The funding provided by Innovate UK, the UK’s Innovation Agency, will be used by RIVIAM to extend the Wellbeing service, transforming the ability for health, social care and third sector organisations to work together.
New capabilities will enable authorised users to set and share tasks, track outcomes and instant message each other about cases – all securely with strict security measures.
Each organisation will continue to use its own IT system but RIVIAM acts as a secure ‘digital bridge’ to share information and provide a single view of a person’s care. All data used within RIVIAM Wellbeing is securely stored in UKCloud Health’s UK sovereign multi-cloud platform.
“The Compassionate Community Hub is an excellent example of a strong working partnership, created through the Council, Virgin Care, 3SG and other third sector partners across different organisational boundaries all coming together and making a real difference to the local population.
RIVIAM has been instrumental in the success of our collaborative approach allowing us to streamline the digital processes in a shared and secure way. Paul and his team at RIVIAM have pulled out all the stops to get the platform up and running in such a short space of time and we are all looking forward to the additional capabilities provided by RIVIAM via the Innovate UK grant.” Michael Plows, Manager of Community Volunteering Services Bath and North East Somerset, Virgin Care
“At Citizens Advice BaNES, we have been working with other charities and third sector organisations over the last year to bring together a partnership with BaNES Council, Virgin Care and the Clinical Commissioning Group to provide a more effective and efficient service to residents, patients and clients all across BaNES. The dreadful challenges of Covid-19 galvanised these partnership discussions into greater action and the Compassionate Community Hub was born. Ten organisations were quickly and effectively working together to provide an emergency response to Covid-19.
The ‘glue’ that pulled all this together was the revolutionary technology platform that was created and delivered to support this crucial work – RIVIAM’s Wellbeing service. This, without doubt, has enabled the initiative to become a huge, unique, nationwide success story, and to deliver a far more effective and efficient solution for the Local Authority, lead healthcare provider and local third sector partners.” Les Redwood, CEO, Citizens Advice BaNES
From left, James Carlin (3SG), Claire Thorogood (BaNES Council), Michael Plows (Virgin Care) recognising the value of RIVIAM's Wellbeing social prescribing platform
“RIVIAM has been key to the success of the Compassionate Community Hub. For the first time, we have been able to work collaboratively on one platform without the need for phone calls or emails. This makes for more accurate partnership working and a better service for residents in all parts of Bath and North East Somerset.” James Carlin, Director, 3SG
“The establishment of the Community Wellbeing Hub in response to the pandemic has been an amazing achievement. Ensuring a collaborative, multi-agency approach to community service provision has been vital to meeting the needs of the BaNES community and RIVIAM has been instrumental in this. It has allowed all organisations to work in a more efficient and coordinated way and so provide a flexible, timely response to our communities.” Kate Morton, CEO, Bath Mind
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