Case Study: Belfast Trust improves care home placement decisions with Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint Online

Belfast Trust’s “Care Home Portal” transforms the experience for vulnerable clients while improving service delivery and freeing up valuable resources

Belfast Health and Social Care Trust faced a challenge in placing vulnerable service users into care homes. Their existing process was manual and time-consuming, requiring staff to spend an estimated 3,600 hours per year phoning individual homes to check for available beds, which diverted valuable resources from direct patient care. To improve efficiency and access to information, the Trust worked with Microsoft Corporation, utilizing Microsoft Adoption Services, Office 365, and SharePoint Online.

Microsoft implemented a cloud-based "Care Home Portal" using SharePoint Online, which allowed care homes to proactively self-declare bed availability. This solution transformed the stressful experience for service users and their families, enabling real-time decision-making with a healthcare professional. The project, developed with close collaboration and change management support from Microsoft Adoption Services, is expected to save thousands of staff hours annually, allowing them to focus more on service delivery and eventually providing operational intelligence for the Trust.

Belfast Trust

Jackie Campbell

Service Manager, Business Support and Administrative Services