Making the most of the tech opportunity in social care

Kirklees Council were prompted to develop an online self-assessment process for financial support requests when increasing demand following the Care Act left their existing 100-days-to-process service unable to cope. 80% of requests are now completed online (including by the very elderly), 18% by phone - using the same process, but mediated - and only 2% now require a home visit. Time and money saved all round is significant, and developers Looking Local (co-owned by Kirklees Council) are supporting a new collaboration by Kent, Stockton and Nottinghamshire Councils to take forward an online care needs assessment project. The project has been submitted for funding from the new Local Digital Fund. EveryLife Technologies’ Pass System is a digital tool and platform that replaces the paperwork involved in managing people’s care and medication whether they are in residential care home or receiving homecare. Lianne and Taffy discuss the processes involved in bringing about these innovations, how collaboration – council to council or council with providers - works, the constraints of traditional procurement methods, and the need to engage care workers in both design and implementation of new technologies. Key technologies in the pipeline include sensors for prediction and picking up unknown issues, and voice recognition, which could dramatically cut the time and cost of recording information about care visits, and as well as enabling the cared-for to provide feedback.