Get Connected: Frequently asked questions

We have answered queries in the FAQ section, so please read these first.

For any new queries please email getconnected@scie.org.uk so that your questions can be fully answered and you have a record of them.

You can phone 0845 6997038 if:

• You are a registered provider and you need a paper Expression of Interest form because you have no means of applying on line at work or at home .
• You are an ICT supplier who would like to be accredited to offer services to care providers.
• You are having difficulty in completing the online Expression of Interest form.
  

The Get Connected Investment Project is a capital grant scheme for the registered providers of adult social care in England and independent sector organisations supporting personalisation in adult social care. It will enable you to improve access for your users, carers, visitors and staff to information and communications technology (ICT) so they can use the power of the internet to communicate, learn and train.

The Department of Health has established a capital fund to enable registered care providers and independent sector organisations supporting personalisation in adult social care to access digital technology more effectively.

ICT, and the internet in particular, are transforming the way we communicate, learn and work. There are around 22,000 independent sector registered social care services for adults in England. Many of them are small, private or voluntary sector organisations who do not have access to high-quality internet or digital technology. This means their users and staff are at a disadvantage in terms of access to training and development, knowledge gathering and full participation in the support networks available online.

Furthermore, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) will require providers to register online from April 2010. Without good access to the internet, this may be challenging for some organisations.

ICT can be used in many ways, for example to:

• enable people who use your services to keep in touch with their communities (e.g. supporting residents of care homes to surf the internet, send e-mails).
• improve the skills and knowledge of your staff (e.g. by giving them access to online resources such as SCIE’s e-learning materials or Social Care TV).
• keep your team up to date with the latest developments in policy and practice (e.g. checking the Department of Health’s website, the latest guidance from CQC or good practice examples from the Dementia Gateway).

These improvements can, in turn, lead to an improvement in the quality of care provided and the experience of people using your services.

£12 million will be distributed in total over the duration of the Investment Project, in four funding cycles. Each individual investment will be up to a maximum value of £20,000. (See Eligibility Criteria for further details)

The kinds of problems we would like to fund solutions for include:

• Saleem was using the internet to keep in touch with her family before she decided to move to a nursing home because of her increasing frailty and medical needs. The home has one computer kept in a locked office, which people living in the home cannot use. Saleem is very distressed at being cut off from her usual contacts and remains mentally quite capable of using the internet if she only had access to it.
• Jacob runs a home care agency which is providing domiciliary care workers for an increasing number of people, so he needs to expand. He wants to make sure that the quality of his care staff is high, and that they are up to date. He does have computer access but only uses his one machine to do administration. His staff could keep up to date and do some training online if he could find a way of expanding access to his ICT.
• Mavis and Jarvis are founder members of a residential shared-care care service for people with learning disabilities. The people who come and stay would like to keep in touch with each other between their visits, as they have become friends over the years. They would also like to know when there are slots that they could use for their visits. Mavis and Jarvis know little about technology and don’t know how to help this happen using ICT.

There are four investment support cycles in the Investment Project. The priority is Care Quality Commission registered providers of adult social care services, with other organisations supporting personalisation in adult social care being eligible to bid from cycle 2.
Get Connected will support registered providers of adult care services in England only. This means that organisations who wish to apply need to be registered with the Care Quality Commission, Companies House, Charity Commission or Financial Services Authority. To check your registration number please check CQC website, Companies House website, Charity Commission website or Financial Services Authority website,

Organisations that support personalisation in adult social care more widely, and who are eligible to apply in cycle 2 will need to be registered with the Charity Commission and/or be a Registered Company. Eligibility will be checked, as will any implications on the public record for financial or organisational viability as part of the assessment process.

SCIE will publicise each cycle of the Investment Project.
For each cycle you will be asked to follow the steps below to apply:

• Step 1: Check that you are eligible to apply using the information in the eligibility criteria.
• Step 2: Create a My SCIE account to start an online Application, if you have not already.
• Step 3: Complete the Expression of Interest form. SCIE has published the Expression of Interest forms and guidance notes online. Providers who cannot get online at work or at home can request a paper Expression of Interest form and guidance notes by calling 0845 6997038.
• Step 4: Submit your Expression of Interest form by the closing date specified. To check applicable dates please visit the Investment fund: Cycles page.
• Step 5: SCIE and our Get Connected partners will then assess your Expression of Interest to see if it is appropriate to invite you to go forward to the formal application stage. We will inform you of the outcome and support your online application. If you have submitted your Expression of Interest by paper we will send you the necessary forms.
• Step 6: You will need to submit your completed application form by the specified closing date. We will put you in contact with approved ICT suppliers in your region to help you to develop your proposal and provide an estimate of the cost.
• Step 7: SCIE and our Get Connected advisory group will assess your application.
  

The Get Connected programme is funded by the Department of Health and managed by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).

We have established an external advisory group of key stakeholders to oversee the Get Connected Investment Project. It will be responsible for overseeing the arrangements for the project, monitoring the applications for investment support and making recommendations on those to be funded.

Members of the external advisory group:

• Sheila Scott, Chief Executive of the National Care Association (chair)
  
• John Adams, General Secretary of the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group
  
• Dr David Clayden, former Strategic Information Director for the Salvation Army and non-executive director of the Society for Information Technology Management
  
• Gaynor Humphreys, Director of London Funders
  
• Ann Macfarlane, Disability Rights and Equalities Consultant, SCIE Board member
  
• Ronald Morton, Strategy Development and Innovation Manager for the Care Quality Commission
  
• Stephen Sloss, Strategic Director of Adult Social Care & Health for Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council
• John Wallace, Training Consultant for Learn to Care

We have also commissioned as partners in delivering the investment project the Charity Technology Trust and London Advice Services Alliance (Lasa). They have considerable experience in identifying and supporting the introduction and good use of ICT in charities and with business, and in providing funding and other forms of support to organisations.

Lasa will be primarily responsible for the accreditation and directory of businesses able to offer ICT advice and support to organisations wishing to think about an ICT solution and make a bid.

Charity Technology Trust will be primarily responsible for the investment application process.
With SCIE and the external advisory group, the partners will share the responsibility for ensuring that the bids for investment support are technically competent, fairly priced, and meet the criteria for eligibility for the project.

Get Connected can only accept Expressions of Interest or Application forms from care providers themselves.

Get Connected can only accept Expressions of Interest or Application forms from care providers themselves.

Yes, provided that the investment will be used exclusively to fund ICT work from a base in England and to benefit primarily and substantially people resident in England.

Adult social care providers registered with the Care Quality Commission can apply in all four cycles. If you are not a Care Quality Commission registered provider you may be eligible to apply in subsequent cycles but the investment will need to fund ICT work that benefits adult social care users primarily and substantially.

FTE means Full–time equivalent. So a member of staff who works full-time for an organisation as that organisation defines it (generally between 37 to 42 hours each week) would be 1.0. FTE. Someone working half-time would be 0.5 FTE. Someone working for 10 hours each week when a full-time person worked 40 hours would be 0.25 FTE. Another way of calculating FTE staff would be to total all the hours staff are paid for, and divide the total by the number of hours a full–time person would work. So if the organisation paid staff for 2000 hours in total, and a full-time person would work 40 hours, the FTE number for the organisation would be 50.

The Investment Project has been designated for improving ICT access work only. Other funding has previously been made available for assistive technologies.

Sorry, no. The Investment Project is for settings where a number of people meet and not for people’s homes

You can apply if your agency is a registered social care provider. As this is capital funding from the DH we cannot invest in organisations that lack the relevant legal status. This means that providers who wish to apply need to be registered with the Care Quality Commission, Companies House, Charity Commission or Financial Services Authority.

You may be eligible to apply in future cycles, please check the eligibility criteria.

Sorry no, the Investment Project is intended for the voluntary and private sector and not for statutory sector organisations. Please encourage providers in your area to consider bidding.

Your bid can include the costs of providing internet access and support for the first 12 months of introduction. The project funding is one-off so there can be no support for costs beyond those covered in the grant. You will need to bear this in mind when making your application.

A searchable directory of vetted and approved ICT suppliers who we know are competent to provide you with a good service is available at the suppliers directory. We would like your supplier to apply for a listing in the directory for the future. They can do this by completing the suppliers directory online form.

If none of the approved suppliers is suitable for you, we will discuss with you using a supplier you have identified. That supplier will need to be able to provide invoices that demonstrate that their business is registered with the Inland Revenue. You will need to take responsibility for making a bid compliant with your own organisation’s policies and procedures.

The care home that you provide services for could apply, therefore you may be eligible to apply in future cycles, please check the eligibility criteria.

If your expression of interest is accepted, you will be asked to use an approved ICT supplier to provide an estimate in support of your full application. They will be able to advise on software. Please be advised, however, that the purpose of the Get Connected Investment is to improve the experience of users of services or staff training and not administration.

We can only consider applications from the organisation which will receive the grant as we have to check eligibility. There is, however, nothing to stop applicants asking their membership organisation for advice.

1. You are a statutory organisation, nursing agency or adult placement scheme and therefore are not eligible for funding through this project in any Funding Cycle.

2. Your organisation is registered outside England. Get Connected will support registered providers of adult care services in England only. This means that registered providers who wish to apply need to be registered with the Care Quality Commission, Companies House, Charity Commission or Financial Services Authority.

Organisations that support personalisation in adult social care more widely, and who are eligible to apply from Cycle 2 will also need to be working and registered in England and be registered with the Charity Commission and/or be a registered company with Companies House, Charity Commission or Financial Services Authority.
Eligibility will be checked, as will any implications on the public record for financial or organisational viability as part of the assessment process.

3. Your application contained organisational, management or administrative equipment or software.

All investment bids will need to show how people who use services, family carers and/or staff will benefit from improved access to information and communication technology (ICT). The funding is for capital expenditure that will support adult social care providers and organisations to extend personalisation through enhanced access to ICT.

All bids must cover one or both of these objectives:

• improving access by people who use services, carers and staff to ICT to enhance the quality of life offered within the service
  and/or
• Improving access by people who use services, carers or staff to ICT that will support their learning, training and development.

4. Your application contained assistive technology (“any product or service designed to enable independence for disabled or older people" DH 2008). Other funding has previously been made available for assistive technologies.

5. Your application contained the development of websites or promotional material. All investment bids will need to show how people who use services, family carers and/or staff will benefit from improved access to information and communication technology (ICT).

6. Your application contained a technical solution to cover ICT development in premises which are not used or under the reasonable control of your organisation. Domestic premises are not eligible.

7. Your Expression of Interest form or Application form contained discrepancies in mandatory fields such as CQC service registration number, company registration number or registered charity number. Due to the high number applications we are not able to correct any discrepancy ourselves.

The main difficulty was that the person filling in the form – on paper or online - did not appear to follow the detailed guidance that is available and completed it incorrectly or missed out answers to questions that were essential for us to establish eligibility. 

Examples of discrepancies could include:

• Individual or organisation names rather than registered names being used, or care provider names that do not match the CQC registration data. 
• Missing or wrong registration numbers (an important identifier for Get Connected in establishing eligibility).
• Data about parent organisations that does not match CQC service registration data, Charity Commission or Companies House records; or was missing when a parent organisation appeared to be in existence.
• Statements of what the organisation wished to do with a grant that does not match the purposes of the Get Connected.

8. Your organisation is a branch of a voluntary organisation and four grants have already been awarded to other branches within that voluntary organisation.
or

Your organisation is a private or voluntary domiciliary care agency which is a branch of a bigger agency, and four grants have already been awarded to other branches within that agency.

or

Your organisation is a private adult social care service which is owned or managed by a parent private company, and four grants have already been awarded to other companies within the parent company group.
 
9. Your Expression of Interest form or Application form was submitted on your behalf by an agent or external company.

Get Connected can only accept Expressions of Interest forms or Application forms from registered care providers themselves. We cannot accept them from any agent (including ICT companies) purporting to be made on behalf of a care provider. We have to be sure that the care provider has full knowledge of everything said on the form and has agreed to it.

We also want to be sure that care providers have had access to good independent advice about the right ICT solutions for them with all the options that would be suitable for software and hardware. Get Connected has not approved any agents to act on behalf of the Programme and will not do so.

10. You began ICT work before an Expression of Interest or Application was submitted or approval was given.