Digital pens save care staff £1.2m

Leeds City Council is to give 1,300 social care workers digital paper and pens in a bid to save £1.2m by 2008.

The council has paid £366,000 for the paraphernalia, which converts hand-written notes into text so it can be transferred to the council's central IT system over a mobile phone GPRS connection.

Mark Harris, Leeds City Council leader, said: "We've been able to identify a significant £1.2m saving in our Social Services operation, and this has attracted substantial interest from other services including the Leeds Youth Offending Service. We are now looking at how [this] technology could be applied in other parts of the council."

The council said home-care workers are also able to leave a paper copy at a client's home, enabling other carers to have a detailed record of care provision on site.

"This is clearly just one of the efficiencies we are working to introduce right across the council," Harris added. "The project completely supports our dual goals of providing a better, more efficient service and making the money we have available to care for people in their own homes go further."

The rollout follows a pilot project using 100 digital pens in Leeds, one of the UK's largest councils.

Destiny Wireless and Anoto sold the Digital Pen and Paper to the council.