Case Study - BIELD Housing Association

"Bield Housing Association are at the forefront of providing housing and services for older people in Scotland. We are a registered charity and a non-profit organisation. Currently we provide housing, care housing, community services, BR24 services and management of private retirement housing to an estimated 15,000 older people in Scotland. The Association was formed in 1971 and our primary objective is to enable older people to live independent and fulfilling lives by being a leading and innovative provider of high quality appropriate housing, care and support services. At Bield, people matter. We work closely with tenants and service users to ensure we deliver services that meet the needs of older people. We are a forward thinking organisation, constantly seeking new and innovative ways to provide services. Once the need for a more efficient and up to date internal method of managing client information was identified, Bield were quick to react and the need for an apprpriate client management system was identified. CareSys/ISS were chosen as Bield's Client Management System, software providers as they met the majority of Bield's needs and requirements as outlined in the initial tender. Their technology demonstrated flexibility and adaptability to satisfy Bield's requirements in principle and proved to be user friendly. 
Bield is now entering into its implementation stage of CareSys and is currently piloting the software in its care sector and shortly its housing sector. To date feedback from users have proved to be very positive and a strong professional working relationship has been established between Bield and ISS."

Patrick Riordan, ICT Project Manager

For some years, Senior Management at Bield had been considering how to address areas of the business for which there was no support provided by their existing Housing Management System. They had looked at a variety of products and concluded that this would best be addressed by a wide-ranging,modern Care Management System.

A previous consultant-led exercise had failed, and Arneil Johnston was asked to carry out a full review of the project, and then carry out the procurement exercise. Due to the complexity and size of Bield's care operations, the cost of any new system would inevitably require a European Journal procurement to be undertaken.

The first stage of our work was to consider the previous exercise, and then to meet with staff from all parts of the business to allow us to understand their needs and how to revise the existing paper-based work practices. As we developed a new vision for working methods, we were told that our work would remove over 85% of the Association's paperflow! All of these requirements were documented and went into the Specification.

The procurement was exhausting and exhaustive, with 33 companies expressing an interest. Our final selection of suppliers all offered extremely good solutions, but ISS managed to prove that CareSys was the best fit product to Bield's requirements. This was particularly due to its ability to support workflows, task-based management, document management and reporting at all levels.

We were pleased to be able to support Bield's decision to select CareSys. It was the most appropriate solution for their particularly challenging requirements.

Colin Moss, Director of ICT Consulting, Arneil Johnston