The JOY App, a social prescription software app co-developed by Wokingham Borough Council, IT company Pungo and partners from across the health sector, has been shortlisted for the Local Government Chronicle (LGC) awards.
The awards for local government celebrate the best of outstanding practice and cutting-edge innovation across the country, as well as working in partnership to achieve great outcomes for their communities.
JOY has been shortlisted in the LGC Award’s Digital Impact category.
The App was designed to provide an innovative response to an issue which was causing residents stress and putting pressure on local health resources.
For many, the GP is often the first place that they turn when they face issues within their lives. However, of those visiting the GP, between 20% and 50% have a health and wellbeing challenge that can’t be addressed by their doctor or medicine alone.
Not only is this placing massive pressure on the limited GP resources available, but it’s also leading to delays in getting people the help they need.
This has a knock-on effect on other services, with those suffering from problems like mobility, loneliness, social isolation and mental health issues more likely to call on statutory services like Adult Social Care, acute hospital and community nursing.
Recognising this needed to be addressed, the council worked with a range of partners including GPs, social prescribers, health and wellbeing providers and service users to better understand the issues.
These included a lack of awareness of the full range of services available in the area, and no easy way for different partners to connect and refer people between services for best effect.
Having identified the issue, the council and its partners worked with IT start-up Pungo to look at digital solutions to help overcome this challenge. This led an innovative new social prescribing software called JOY.
The initial development involved bringing together six Primary Care Networks, 12 GP surgeries, a community nursing provider, several council teams and a large and diverse voluntary sector to make sure the solution met the needs of a diverse range of users.
The JOY App, which was funded through the Digital Cities initiative and Better Care Fund, offers a range of benefits aimed at better connecting residents in need with the best health and wellbeing service to offer them support.
Since launching with six voluntary sector services on offer, the JOY app has continued to grow, and now offers 131 services from across all sectors, including adult social care, sport and leisure and community nursing.
The App has also continued to adapt to meet needs, with updates made in response to feedback from GPs and other users, including changes to make the referrals process even quicker by linking into existing clinical software, and pre-populating forms to speed up the process of filling them in.
In the last year, the JOY App has supported almost 5,000 people within the borough, leading to a 23% reduction in the number of GP appointments being requested, and 88% of patients reporting an increase in their wellbeing after using the App.
Feedback from users includes praise for how easy and intuitive using the App is, how everything is there in one place, and how much more responsive to local needs their services can be now they have such detailed data and feedback to use.
Cllr David Hare, executive member for health, wellbeing and adult services, said: “Making sure residents can access the right support services quickly and efficiently is incredibly important.
“Not only does it make their experience better, but it also reduces pressure on other services like local GPs and adult social care.
“Being able to bring together people with lived experience of the challenges and pressures the current healthcare system faces was a great opportunity.
“By working with them to come up with solutions and co-develop the JOY App, collectively we’ve been able to create something fantastic which will help improve lives far beyond Wokingham Borough. This nomination is a real testament to the hard work that’s been done and I’m proud to see JOY and those involved nominated for this prestigious award.”
The council and its partners will meet with an LGC judging panel in April to present the project, and to talk about the benefits the JOY App has brought to the borough and beyond.
Winners will be announced by the LGC at an event on June 12.
