Our Client
Whizz-Kidz is a charitable organisation dedicated to helping disabled children and young people improve their quality of life by making mobility more accessible. As they say on their website, “We’re working hard to transform the lives of disabled children across the UK, supporting them to become confident and independent young adults.”
Since 1990, Whizz-Kidz has helped to change the lives of over 18,000 disabled children and young people. As time has moved on, and technology has improved, they have adapted their range of equipment to supply the latest mobility solutions. Whizz-Kidz has also improved their supply chain, significantly reducing costs over time.
Whizz-Kidz receives a great deal of their referrals from the NHS, and currently service 11 areas with their wheelchairs. They are able to significantly reduce the average NHS waiting time of 2 years in those areas that they service. The ambition of the charity is to start working in places they have not reached yet, reducing the waiting times experienced, and improving the standard of wheelchairs those children and young people receive.
Future plans include being able to service more areas and to be able to reach more children and young people, as well as continuing to improve the supply chain to make cost reductions where possible, making wheelchairs even more accessible.
Our Brief
As with many of our clients, 23ccc was introduced to Whizz-Kidz through a company we were already providing development services for, and who were also working with Whizz-Kidz. That was in 2011, and our relationship has developed ever since.
Our initial development role was to create a system that helped these two companies work better together.
In essence this meant creating a system that would help modernise the specification, ordering and status of every piece of equipment that Whizz-Kidz needed to supply. Before Whizz-Kidz and 23ccc worked together, the therapists who assessed the children and young people for their wheelchairs needed to fill out prescription forms, and depending on the needs of the individual, these could run to many dozens of pages.
The process was very manual and time consuming, with a reliance on paper, fax machines, and manual data inputting, with that data going to the suppliers that Whizz-Kidz use to create the bespoke chairs. We needed to make this process more streamlined, less labour-intensive, and quicker, allowing the therapists to see more children and young people.
The Solution
The system we designed digitised the whole process. Allowing everything to take place online meant that ordering and procurement of the wheelchair equipment could be managed across a range of PCTs as well as in the private-based world.
Order costs could be limited based on a defined budget based on an individual case basis, and the staff could access controls and authorisation processes to manage purchasing on a large scale.
We created a bespoke database to manage the ordering and product spec system, which is web-based for access in remote locations – ideal for the therapists. The system is set up so that different functions at Whizz-Kidz are restricted to what they can use, helping to create users who are experts in their area. There are currently XXX users working with this bespoke system, but it has been designed to grow with the charity as new employees come on board.
The system has a direct link to the internal accounts package, removing the need for manual entries into spreadsheets and hand-written orders and invoices.
As well as this, the system links to specific suppliers and manufacturers, so the prescriptions that are now filled out online can be filtered, allocated a purchase order number, and sent digitally to the correct company.
Speaking of the prescriptions, therapists now have the ability to access order histories, which enables them to track the progress of the orders and has streamlined their clinics, allowing them to provide great customer service.
Our Outcomes
The procurement system has been the cornerstone of the Whizz-Kidz operation for many years. 23ccc manage the hosting, service level agreements and day-to-day upkeep of the system on their behalf.
For 23ccc it has given us the chance to implement a web application that has many layers and many moving parts, and it is something we are very proud to have built. We are equally as proud of the team at Whizz-Kidz who took this part of their business and put it online. They have worked with us all the way through, and now have a system that allows them to reach more children and young people, helping them provide the vital equipment needed by so many.
We are very happy to continue working with Whizz-Kidz to see where our relationship goes next!
Visit the Whizz-Kidz Website >>
