The Care Home Staffing Model (CHSM) based on the Indicator of Relative Needs (IoRNs) was published by the National Services Scotland in 2009. It does have some similarities with DepenSys in that there are domains covering both physical and mental health needs which are scored and aggregated to give an overall assessment of a resident's dependence on care.
The differences are significant;
The CHSM has 11 areas, DepenSys has 26 plus another for whether nursing care is required (but is still quick and intuitive to complete);
DepenSys gives equal weighting to 'psychological, emotional and social care' as it does to 'physical care'. The CHSM has been criticised (see reference below) for appearing 'to support task-orientated approaches to care due to limited reference to holistic aspects of care which require care staff attention such as communication, psychological or sleeping needs.', and 'using terminology such as 'aggression' and 'toileting' which is 'demeaning' and '...likely to reinforce the stigma associated with older people.'
The CHSM classifies residents into dependency categories; DepenSys produces an accurate individual time per resident needed for care in 24 hours, and the 'skill mix' - the proportion of that time required to be provided by a senior carer in residential homes or a nurse in nursing homes.
The algorithms behind DepenSys go back to Rob Fawcett’s Masters thesis on assessing and influencing the quality of nursing care in 1989, and the application to care homes in 2003-2004 when the 'RFC Dependency System' was created (RFC = Rob Fawcett Consultancy). This was a spreadsheet-based model. The validation process used appears to be similar to CHSM which 'has been designed, tested and validated during the course of the study with greater than 3,300 care home residents in Scotland.' The RFC Dependency System was initially tested and developed with 30 care homes, both residential and nursing, with 1500 residents' needs studied.
DepenSys is the culmination of the work commenced in 2003, and in producing the web-based system, it was possible to move away from basing the times on care category classification and move to individual time and skill mix. In 2018-2019, a further 2000 residents' needs were assessed and reviewed to produce the DepenSys system formally introduced in March 2019. The system continues to develop based on user feedback and further research, with more than 25,000 residents having had their needs assessed using DepenSys.
It is interesting to note that development work on the CHSM does not appear to have gone beyond 2016, and The Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019 has tasked the Care Inspectorate with developing a staffing method to be used by people who provide care home services for adults. It is understood that DepenSys is being looked at as potentially contributing to that method.
Reference:
Mitchell, G., Cousins, C., Burrows, R., & Cousins, G. (2017). A review of safe-staffing models and their applicability to care homes. Journal of Nursing Management, 25(2), 157-162. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.12450