Service design-Hanover

Introduction
Hanover Scotland is a housing association providing a range of housing and services, mainly for older people. The Association has one of the largest Alarm Receiving Centres in Scotland, providing telecare call monitoring services to over 19,000 customers across the country. Typical of traditional telecare services, this service is principally reactive in nature.

Hanover is interested in developing a service which would make proactive outbound calls to customers to better support them. A move toward more proactive, preventative approaches to care is part of a national agenda and a proactive calling service could be a welcome complementary service offering to both Hanover’s residents and its wider telecare customers.

In early 2022, the Association was granted funding from the Scottish Government’s TEC Programme to help it discover what a proactive calling service could look like at Hanover.

What did Hanover do?
The granted funds from the TEC Programme enabled Hanover to appoint a Project Lead, Elaine Rosie, on a six-month contract to help undertake the work required. The Project Lead was supported by Amy Dougan, Business Development Manager, who oversaw the project.  

The project set out to achieve the following key deliverables:

• An understanding of the needs of current and future stakeholders in respect of a proactive telecare offer

• Potential model(s) for a future service

• A written feasibility report, presenting research from other proactive calling services, and 

• Sharing learning with the wider network in line with the principles of the Scottish Approach to Service Design.

With fantastic support from Service Designers appointed by the TEC Programme, the Association followed the principles of the Scottish Approach to Service Design to ‘discover’ and ‘define’ what such a service could look like at Hanover, with input from employees, customers, potential commissioners and incorporating learning from proactive calling services already being delivered in the UK and further afield.

What was the output and the outcome?
A written feasibility report has been produced, which sets out Hanover’s learning and presents the rationale for pursuing different service delivery models. It is clear from the research that a proactive calling service could deliver significant benefits to its customers, its employees and to Hanover as a business. 

The report and its proposals have been well-received internally, and the Association is keen to progress to the next steps of developing and delivering a live service. In the coming few months, Hanover is hoping to launch a couple of proactive calling Tests of Change. These will help to clarify the needs of customers, explore different models of delivery, and help the Association to understand the costs, benefits and risks of each of the services before rolling out on a larger scale. 

Key learning points
Hanover was proud that it was able to stick to its original timescales and was delighted by how open other organisations were about sharing their learning and experiences with it; this was invaluable.

Some interesting insights Hanover found were: that loneliness and isolation were key drivers behind the need for a proactive calling service; that the Association can expect proactive calls to significantly reduce reactive telecare calls; and that some of the customers who could benefit the most from a proactive calling service are those that are not yet known by Social Work or that don’t yet have a care plan in place; those that go ‘under the radar’ and are only perhaps made known once a crisis point is reached. 

Hanover learned to question its initial assumptions and, instead, use the learning and evidence gathered from speaking to stakeholders and experienced organisations to shape its understanding. 

A particular challenge for the Association was trying to condense and make sense of all the information and research it gathered in order to find a clear way forward. The amount of data and information was at times overwhelming, and it took time and encouragement from Hanover’s Service Design support to distil the key themes and find clarity in its direction. 

Hanover will adopt the Scottish Approach to Service Design in other areas of the Association’s work as it found this collaborative, co-design approach to be an excellent way of getting to the crux of the problem before rushing to implement a solution.

Hints and tips
Hanover’s best hints and tips for others designing a new service are:

• Be realistic with timescales.

• Speak to others with experience in delivering a similar service; in Hanover’s experience, they will be more than happy to help!

• Be open to challenging your – and others’ – assumptions and biases.

• Understand that it’s OK to go back, revise and tweak your approach – progress is more important than perfection!

Find out more

Here is a full copy of Hanover’s feasibility report. The Association would be happy to discuss its experience and learning with anyone interested.

Please contact Amy Dougan at adougan@hanover.scot