Numerous official enquiries in recent years have told us that health and social care agencies need to communicate more effectively if disasters such as the death of Victoria Climbie are to be avoided. Being able to do something about the problem is a big driver for Cheshire-based IT firm, in4tek. E-Health Insider interviews CEO Tom Nawojczyk (left).

“The flexibility of Paris allows organisations to realise their visions and expectations of what they want to achieve and how they want to work," says in4tek director, John Hopkins (left). "However, to achieve that does involve much pre-planning, workflow analysis and process mapping prior to the implementation of the system. It is necessary for a detailed examination of the businesses processes, and how these can be improved, and to see if the right circumstances or facilities are presented."

The Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust (C&VT) is a sizeable organisation. The result of several mergers in recent years, the last of which was between the local community and mental health trust and the acute trust, the University Hospital of Wales, the trust is now the third largest in the UK.

Bristol City Council's Social Services Department, like other such departments across the county, has been undergoing reorganisation and the last twelve months have been a particularly testing time. Apart from organisational changes, for example separating out of Children's Services, the main focus has centred on the sensitive issue of budgets and unit costs.

Since commencing the implementation of Paris in 2003, the City and County of Swansea Social Services have used the system's capabilities to encourage and further extend existing multi-organisational and multi-disciplinary working throughout their area of influence.

The Southampton City Council Health and Social Care Directorate, awarded three star authority status in 2005, has become one of the first councils in England to implement a fully Integrated Children's' System (ICS) as part of their social care system. And in a further development, which also supports the DH's policy on the integration of services, the authority now provide SAP assessments to Southampton PCT users over NHSNet including the ability to record SAP assessments.

In Northern Ireland, South & East Belfast Health & Social Services NHS Trust (SEBT) provides the full range of primary, secondary and tertiary mental health services, all community health services and social care programmes for all groups of vulnerable people. These include mental health, learning disability, physical disability, older people and children's services.