Giving children the best start in life through digital

The Early Years digitisation project is a huge step forward for our city-region and will hugely boost our aim of giving children in Greater Manchester the best possible start in life. We've started by developing an ‘Early Years’ app that digitises the paper-based assessments currently used to review a child’s development.

What is the early years app?

The Early Years App provides parents and carers of children across Greater Manchester with a digital application to complete assessments that are currently paper-based and ensures that parents and carers have access to both completed assessments and other supporting information completed by the professional and gives the user much more control over their own data.

The app is currently being used in Bury and Rochdale and can be deployed in other Greater Manchester localities. An early education extension to the app is also in use in Rochdale, and will go live in Salford on the 1st March 2023. Please contact the team to discuss using the app in your area.

Early Years digitisation will see streamlined systems connect hundreds of Greater Manchester professionals such as health visitors and school health services with parents and carers, enabling them to work together to better support families. It is the first part of our wider digital platform that aims to ensure that digital access to public services is integrated and user-friendly.

This work will also pave the way for other public service areas to digitally transform the service citizens receive, by digitising paper-based forms, joining up different parts of the system and sharing information safely and securely.

The benefits

• Increase capacity of heath visiting (approx. 30% based on pilot). Evidence suggests an average of 118.4 minutes saved per visit (integrated solution vs. stand alone solution)
• Provides professionals accessible and mobile data (currently paper records) 
• Better commissioning - public health officers often commission without underlying historical demand data 
• Creates richer, shareable data
• Citizen in control of their own data. The app puts the parent or carer in control of their own data and allows them to make more informed decisions about their families
• Reduced cost - it is estimated that the Early Years app is more cost effective than maintaining paper assessments, approximately £5,000 per locality in addition to the increased efficiences
• Better identification of support - facilitates automated sharing of data, with relevant professionals, enabling more timely identification of required support and reduces duplication of effort

Latest update

• As of October 2023, the Early Years App is now being piloted in Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme in Stockport.

• In February 2023, over in Rochdale, relevant professionals are now benefiting from an extension to their use of our existing Early Year App. The app is now live in early education settings, giving local authority practitioners the ability to complete WellComm assessment forms digitally. This also means we’re increasing the age range of children in Rochdale being supported via the Early Years app, with a reach now up to primary school age, and it enables the assessment data to be easily shared between professionals. The same extension went live in Salford in March 2023. The application is also currently being rolled out to settings in Rochdale and Salford, for use by practitioners in nurseries and schools.

• The team behind the app have been working closely with NHS colleagues to integrate the Early Years Integration Solution with the NHS National Event Management Service (NEMS) to pull through demographics and events data – events data can include births and deaths and change to a registered GP or home address. Further integrations will include NHS Spine Mini Service (SMS) giving the user the ability to seamlessly search additional demographic data using an NHS number.

• In May 2022, the app was celebrated winning the Effective Information Sharing and Security award at the 2021 iNetwork Innovation Awards

• In November 2021, the Early Years App (Early Years Integrated Solution) was crowned winner of Digital Public Service Innovation of the Year Award 2021 at the Digital Leaders 100 Awards.

Hear from our colleagues

Watch Vicky McClung, Health Visitor, Bury & Rochdale Care Organisation

Watch Petra Hayes-Bowers, Service Manager, Children's Services, Bury

If you are interested in the early years application, or our work to give children the best start in life through digital, email the team.