CareSupport

The Supporting People initiative is an integrated policy and system of funding for the provision of housing support services. Authorities have new responsibilities which came into effect in April 2003. These include planning, commissioning & funding housing support services, assessing the needs of individuals, means testing, and charging for these services.

In early 2000, OLM embarked on a development programme to develop a solution to meet the needs of the Supporting People initiative. A dedicated SP team was put together and we began an ongoing watching brief to assess the guidance being issued at the time by the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, and subsequently the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM).

In 2001, OLM was first to involve customers by holding bi-monthly user group conferences for customers to get together to develop a joint solution. In addition, we also partnered with several authorities who played a key role in the development of our Supporting People Solution, CareSupport.

In October 2002, OLM launched CareSupport, the first general market release by any supplier of a Supporting People IT System. CareSupport not only meets all the mandatory requirements in the System Requirements Catalogue from the OPDM, but includes enhanced functionality to offer additional benefits to our customers.