The touch of a button
The UK-wide switch to digital-only telephone systems is an opportunity for care providers to consider how new technology can enhance their services
INNOVATION & IMPROVEMENT
Image: Istock
Liz Zacharias
Director, Campbell Tickell
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Issue 65 | April 2023
The plan to switch off UK analogue landline telephone systems in 2025 should herald a new age of digital connectivity. As part of this, we know many sheltered housing providers are looking at their analogue telecare/careline systems and planning for the switch-off.
Given all the other current claims on providers’ finances (fire safety, net zero-carbon, damp and mould and the English social rent cap of 7%) it is tempting to just go for a patch fix – something that will enable your analogue equipment to work with the digital infrastructure after the switch-off.
However, perhaps a more long-term view is needed. Some providers see the switch-off as an opportunity to review their service models and are looking at how digital tools can enhance their services, as well as safeguard and promote the independence and choice of their tenants. So what is possible and where to start?
Types of technology
Over the past couple of years, there have been several reports looking at the digital tools available to support people to live independently.
One useful report was that of the Centre for Care – Technology for social care: Spotlight in English policy landscape (2019-2022 Dr Grace Whitfield and Dr Kate Hamblin). This usefully categorises the different types of technology into:
- Assisting – helping people do things and giving prompts
- Monitoring – e.g. telecare and sensors
- Organising and recording – e.g. digital care records and apps for staff to record their activities
- Collecting and analysing data – e.g. on vital signs
- Connecting – communication devices, video calls, remote observations, etc
“Tech and digital tools are still often seen as the way to manage people’s care needs and reduce costs, rather than the way to develop the services of the future, giving people more choice and control over their lives.”
Services of the future
We are living at a time when digital tech has become more intuitive to use and artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being embedded into our interactions with tech so machines learn the best way to meet our needs. So far, however, tech and digital tools are still often seen as the way to manage people’s care needs and reduce costs, rather than the way to develop the services of the future, giving people more choice and control over their lives.
Yes, there are challenges. There is no single place where housing providers can go to explore all the options and work out how to tailor them to suit your service and your tenants’ needs. There are any number of companies developing and selling different systems all able to do different things. Making the right decisions is difficult and can be costly if you get it wrong. We are also still not at a place where all the different systems are interoperable.
Much of the time, companies develop what they think the provider needs rather than what the customer/end user – the older tenant in this instance – really needs and would like to have. There are also ethical dilemmas about what happens to that data being gathered? How far should monitoring people’s wellbeing go before it tips into invasion of privacy? All this is before you even get to the thorny issues of digital connectivity and coverage across the UK and the costs involved in getting infrastructure and equipment installed.
Tech savvy
Yet these challenges are outweighed by the opportunities. We know that older people are becoming more confident in using tech and as we progress more and more people will be comfortable using tech as part of their everyday life because they will have grown up with it. A whole range of benefits could accrue if providers seized the opportunity of the analogue switch-off to look at how the tech can support their tenants.
The recent All-Party Parliamentary Group report ‘Smarter Homes for Independent Living’ summed it best by saying we needed:
“A more holistic approach to empower people to live independently (controlling their environment, supporting functional memory and cognition, accessing services such as GP appointments, staying connected to friends and family, for example) and healthily (including by tackling mental health problems caused by social isolation, preventing avoidable accidents around the home, and detecting causes of poor health early on).
“There is still too much emphasis on a medical model of ‘doing technology to people’ and using technology to replace the role of carers rather than providing people with technology for their own use and helping to make more time for human interaction.”
The use by people of all ages of fitbits, Siri, Alexa, tablets and apps has shown the way. It is time to embrace the analogue switch-off opportunity and work with older tenants to create supported housing services of the future.
