An innovative approach to tackling supply shortages in health and social care services

Covid-19不分青红皂白地暴露了英国卫生和社会保健服务的脆弱状态。2020年4月16日，BBC看到的一封泄露的信件揭示了对社会护理部门如何应对新冠肺炎危机的广泛担忧。这封信引发了人们对资金、检测、个人防护装备（PPE）和针对弱势群体的屏蔽方案的担忧。现在显而易见的是，在整个HSC部门的关键资源的可用性和获取方面存在明显的不平衡和差距。这迫使他们重新思考自己的供应链模式，并评估可持续性水平，以应对紧急情况。然而，另一方面，许多企业和个人通过响应满足当地供应链需求的迫切需求，迅速调整了他们的服务。例如，在苏格兰，利思杜松子酒（Leith Gin）和BrewDog已经暂停了他们的酿酒厂活动，专注于生产洗手液。同样，越来越多的餐馆和咖啡馆正在将他们严重中断的用餐服务转变为（非接触式）送货服务。这些调整表明，社会、公共和私营部门之间存在强有力的合作和支持潜力，以满足当地HSC服务的供应需求，并在整个地区提供互助。在这个项目中，来自苏格兰的地球观测和数据可视化公司Stevenson Astrosat有限公司将与什罗普郡议会一起进行试验，以确定能够满足什罗普郡HSC服务需求的位置和供应类型。该试验旨在通过在线调查从社区收集数据，以帮助通过当地风险恢复小组和成人社会护理服务慈善机构与当地健康和社会护理服务建立联系。该项目对社会的预期影响是，通过提高供应链弹性，以及使志愿者、公共和私营组织能够合作，为HSC部门提供切实和直接的利益，从而改善对Covid-19危机的卫生响应。经济影响将使当地企业能够适应并继续经营，从而保留就业机会和经济产出。这将有助于经济更快地从危机中复苏。由于在危机期间以及危机结束后很长一段时间内，通过“购买本地产品”，本地需求更容易得到满足，因此通过最小化供应运输里程来减少排放对环境的影响。最初的项目证实了对什罗普郡成人社会护理（ASC）提供者所面临的供应短缺的更大粒度的需求，以及什罗普郡的当地企业是否可以满足这些需求。同样明显的是，地方当局需要知道这些供应短缺是否继续存在，特别是在危机时期，以便探索替代干预手段来填补这些短缺；例如来自邻近的郡或英国的其他地区。这个扩展的影响项目将旨在收集先进的分析从开发的产品，以确定客户（ASC供应商）和供应商（本地企业）的互动，使这些指标可以收集和动态报告。这种有价值的见解不会给我们产品的用户带来任何负担，反而会使我们的产品向商业化迈进一大步。这些见解将使地方当局能够获得有关ASC供应链当前状态的最新和准确的信息，并使他们能够行使其职责，确保其区域内ASC的功能和运营稳健。此外，ASC部门将从这些见解中受益，因为通过支持更强大的当地经济，他们将能够更好地管理供应链风险。

Covid-19 has indiscriminately exposed the fragile state of the Health and Social Care (HSC) services in the UK. On 16 April 2020, a leaked letter seen by the BBC has revealed an extensive list of concerns about how the social care sector is coping with the Covid-19 crisis. The letter raised fears about funding, testing, personal protective equipment (PPE) and the shielding scheme for vulnerable people. What is evident now is that there is a clear imbalance and disparity in the availability of, and access to critical resources across the HSC sector. This has forced them to rethink their supply chain models and evaluate sustainability levels to cope in times of emergency.On the flip side however, a number of businesses and individuals have quickly adapted their services by responding to the pressing and urgent need to fulfil local supply-chain demands. For example, in Scotland, Leith Gin and BrewDog have suspended their distillery activities to focus on the production of hand sanitiser. Similarly, more restaurants and cafes are turning their severely disrupted dine-in services into (non-contact) deliveries. These adaptations demonstrate that there is potential for strong collaboration and support between society, public and private sectors to fulfil the supply demands of their local HSC services and provide mutual aid across the region.In this project, Stevenson Astrosat Ltd. - an Earth Observation and data visualisation company from Scotland - will run a trial with Shropshire Council to identify the location and type of supplies that could fulfil the demands of the HSC services in Shropshire. The trial will aim to gather data from the community via an online survey to aid the link-up to local health and social care services through local risk resilience groups and the adult social care services charities. The expected impacts of this project on society are an improved health response to the Covid-19 crisis through improved supply chain resilience and the enablement of volunteers, public and private organisations to collaborate and deliver tangible and immediate benefits to the HSC sector at a time when it really matters. The economic impacts will be enabling local businesses to adapt and continue operating thus retaining jobs and, economic output. This will aid faster economic recovery from the crisis. The environmental impact is to reduce emissions by minimising supply transportation miles as local demands get fulfilled more readily through "buy local" during the crisis and long after it ends.The original project confirmed the need for greater level of granularity regarding supply shortages faced by adult social care (ASC) providers in Shropshire and whether these could be fulfilled by local businesses in Shropshire. It was also evident that local authorities would need to know if these supply shortages continued to persist, particularly during times of crisis so that alternative means of interventions to plug these shortages could be explored; e.g. from neighbouring counties or other parts of the UK. This extension for impact project will aim to gather advanced analytics from the developed product to determine the customer (ASC providers) and supplier (local businesses) interactions so that these metrics can be gathered and reported dynamically. This valuable insight will not place any burden on the users of our product but instead make it leap forward significantly towards commercialisation. These insights will allow local authorities to have the most up-to-date and accurate information about the current state of ASC supply chains and enable them to exercise their responsibilities for ensuring a functional and operationally robust ASC provision in their region. Furthermore, the ASC sector will benefit from these insights as will be able to better manage their supply-chain risks through the support of a stronger local economy.