Disadvantages of a Computer Based System

Whilst there were advantages to the EDB, reliance upon computers comes with several down sides. Firstly there was the obvious issue with any computerised system, lack of access to information when the system crashes. When I raised this originally with the IT staff I was advised this was not a significant problem as any system failures could be quickly rectified. However, staff in the teams held quite a different view and many complained that it regularly crashed or was slow and it was irrelevant if the system was ‘only’ down for 10 minutes if during that 10 minutes they were trying to deal with a family in crisis or were trying to share information with other agencies in a child protection investigation.

Another area of difficulty related to computer literacy. In the host LA many of the more recently qualified social workers were computer literate but some of the more experienced social workers found using the system a challenge. When I spoke with staff about this, it seemed to be less about actually accessing information, indeed many staff said the system was not complicated and required little more than the ability to use the arrow keys and mouse to read information. The difficulty seemed to relate to the high level of typing and data input skills needed to keep the system up-to-date. Many staff complained they now spent much longer writing up case notes and completing reports than they had in the past and that reading information on a computer screen was not as easy as reading paper files.

The most notable of the complaints made by several staff in the teams was one period in time when the ‘delete’ and ‘save’ functions on the EDB had been inadvertently transposed, resulting in documents being lost into an un-retrievable abyss. In relation to a pre-birth assessment written just days before the baby was due one member of staff said:

When I pressed the save button the form just disappeared from the screen. I just thought it had saved and closed it so I went to open it again…but it wasn’t there. So I phoned IT and this woman just told me that the save and delete buttons had the same function. I thought she had gone mad, or that the cleaner or some one had answered the phone for a joke! So I said that I thought she was wrong but she said she wasn’t. Then I got mad with her and told her to get some one who knew what they were talking about. This bloke came on the phone and after telling me not to shout at his staff told me the same and that my work had been lost. I couldn’t F* believe it! Some others in the team lost their work as well. We sent an email around the teams to say don’t do your assessments on the system because it ends up in a game of Russian roulette when it comes to saving. They did sort this one out pretty quickly but when it takes hours to fill in an assessment. It takes longer to do the assessment than give birth!

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The paperless office approach meant that printers had been removed from the social work offices and only the administrative staff had access to printing facilities. However, the nature of social work practice is that most work does not take place in the office and, in relation to pre-birth assessment, this is often the family home, hospital or medical centre . Although some of the social workers had access to laptops, they were not able to link remotely via the internet, to the EDB. When going out on a visit social workers, therefore, had to make a hand written note of any information they may need (names, addresses, dates of birth and any significant information which may be needed during the visit or meeting) to take with them. Hand writing information, often on a sheet of paper not attached to anything else, negated the advantages of having password access to electronic data as there was a risk of hand written notes getting lost or misplaced. If a printed copy of a report was required social workers had to request a copy in advance and administrative staff complained that the EDB did not allow for information to be printed quickly or easily. This was seen by social workers as a laborious and time-wasting process but it also meant there was immense difficulty in working openly with families by providing copies of reports and other information written about them. One social worker commented on a case she had where the parent had reading difficulties. Because of the time involved in writing reports and then printing them, this meant the time available for the parent to read a report before a meeting was significantly reduced.

Whilst the issues identified above were significant there was another issue that was growing on a daily basis during my fieldwork and served to undermine all of the advantages of a computerised system. The LA had a protocol for case file management that had been in operation for many years but this related to paper based filing systems and took account of different teams holding different types of file according to their specific function. A new protocol relevant to the EDB was in the process of being developed when I was gathering data but was very much in the early discussion stages with no written or uniform guidance issued. Staff were, therefore, adapting the paper based case file protocols to the EDB as they went along and in accordance with their own team’s customs and practices. On top of this, as outlined shortly, different recording styles and approaches, different understanding of the purpose of the various documents linked to the EDB and ICS, different attitudes to adopting an electronic system and different levels of skill and competency in using an electronic case file all added to the picture of inconsistency. What this meant in practice was that whilst there was uniformity in the EDB provided by the layout of various screens and pages and uniformity in the ICS documentation in use, how, where and when information was put onto the system was anything but uniform.

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