01/10/21 – Quick Turnaround for Blatchford Ltd, now live with BEST V14

Quick Turnaround for new Contract
Soft Options would not usually aim to complete a new Installation of BEST in less than 3 months, but when Blatchfords asked “Can we have a fully featured BEST Wheelchair system and, by the way, we have to go live in 6 weeks”, of course the answer had to be yes, providing we put some tight deadlines on providing the initial data and having the infrastructure in place.

This project would be a real test of the Soft Options Development Team’s efforts over the past 3 to 4 years. BEST has always been the right software for any healthcare equipment service, both NHS and private sector, covering all Clinical and Approved Repairer functions. Using their combined experience, Soft Options have built BEST V14 to be as “ready to go” as possible. Every customer has slightly different requirements and ways of working, and more and more, the BEST Developers have anticipated these needs. By making the different options into configurable settings, BEST now offers plenty of choice without having to resort to program changes. This has been crucial to the success of this project.

Blatchfords also had many challenges, such as not having access to the staff until the start day for their contract, but also the advantage of being able to design their service from scratch, the way they wanted to work. I don’t think it’s luck, but BEST V14 is able to handle all their processes, and with no program changes. This is what made achieving the tight timescale possible, and also saved money.

Softoptions were integral in achieving a short deadline for implementation. The transfer of data was managed exceptionally well and very quickly we had access to all notes and equipment history which has ensured a smooth transition for wheelchair service users. The system is new to Blatchford and we are still learning all the functionalities it can deliver. The team at Softoptions provide ongoing support which, with their knowledge of wheelchair service, has been invaluable.

Beth Foreman
Project Manager

Blatchfords’ Northampton operation covers both the Clinical and Approved Repair sides of the Wheelchair Service and works out of 3 sites. These are some of the newer features of BEST V14 that they are using to streamline their processes:
• Intelligent Mobile Forms for Referrals.
• Multiple Stores to handle Stock and Asset Management.
• Custom built bar code scanning processes (built within the BEST generic bar code function module) for:
– Stock Taking
– Moving Assets both between and within Stores
– Raising Reconditioning Work Orders

Training
The training sessions for this project were predominately on-line recorded sessions, with some physical onsite training towards and around Go Live.

The remote sessions were recorded to allow any staff who were unable to attend to watch them back, whilst also acting as an aide-memoir for staff who attended the session as they can re-watch processes which helps support off-line practice sessions.

All of the training sessions were extremely well attended, and as we always advise had at least one super user from the service, usually Caroline, on hand to answer any procedural and service-based questions – this helps the sessions to flow and remain on track, allowing all content to be covered within the set time.

The sessions gave all attendees an essential introduction into the system and the various screens and processes involved. All users covered the system basics (logging in, changing passwords, screen layouts etc.), and then we held more specialised sessions for staff in different roles, such as System Admins, Clinicians etc.

Having Caroline at the service end on hand worked very well and enabled me to ensure all queries were answered in detail and at speed. It was a real pleasure to work with the staff here, and I look forward to seeing them again in the future.

David Potter
Lead Trainer