Table 1 COVID-19 digital tracker: planned implementation strategy

Stakeholder engagement

Strategic

• Strategic agreement of project at GM health and social care system level

GM health and social care governance and emergency decision-making groups

• Detailed briefing explaining rationale for decision, what will happen and when, to be shared with key stakeholder groups: Directors of Adult Social Services (DASSs) and wider Local Authority staff; care home managers and staff; residents and carers; Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG); GPs; NHS Trusts; regional health and social care partnership organisation; regional combined authority organisation; regional mayor; integrated care team directors; implementation agency staff; technology developer staff; regional communications team; public engagement groups; local/national media

Regional health and social care partnership organisation; regional communications division; Directors of Adult Social Care (DASSs) for GM

• Clinical Reference Group (CRG) to be established to oversee clinical aspects of tracker and its future development (to include representation from: GPs, NHS Trusts, DASSs and other Local Authority staff, care home managers/staff, clinical commissioning group staff, regional health and social care partnership organisation staff, technology developer staff)

Implementation agency staff

Operational

• Locality steering groups to be established to ideally include for each locality: clinical lead, project lead, care home manager lead, information governance lead, GP representative, CCG contact, Local Authority contact

Implementation agency staff

• Letter to care home managers to introduce ‘onboarding’ of care home

Local Authority or NHS locality lead with remit for adult social care homes

• Welcome email to care homes with log-in instructions, user guide, frequently asked questions

Technology developers

• Follow-up call for troubleshooting

Technology developers and/or implementation agency staff

Senior responsible officer

Implementation support at the locality level

• Support localities to access IT kit/wi-fi connectivity

• Establish locality steering group for local deployment

• Support training activity

• Support clinical teams to integrate data and reporting from care homes

• Identify and use GP and care home manager champions

• Support localities with information governance arrangements

Implementation agency staff

Training for care home staff

• Training care homes to use IT equipment and tracker interface to complete twice-weekly assessments of residents’ COVID symptoms, confusion symptoms and general wellness

• Based on developers’ prior experience of implementing similar technology in care home sector

• 10–15 min, one-to-one, light-touch technical ‘on-boarding’ delivered via telephone by developer and/or implementation agency staff

• Involved rapid familiarisation of care home staff with technical/functional aspects of tracker

• Less focus on rationale for tracker and understanding tracker question fields

• Supported by developers’ help pages

• No or low-level follow-up

Implementation agency and/or technology developer staff