Oct 28, 2019
On 14th October CQC published its annual report, The state of health care and adult social care in England 2018/19. The report takes a look into how effective our health and social care services are and what we need to do to improve them.
This year the report particularly focuses on mental health and learning disability provision. Key findings include: current care given to those with learning disabilities and autism is not acceptable, better community care services are required and more support needs to be given for innovations in care.
In particular, we’ve welcomed the report’s emphasis on technology and its benefits as a means to transform our health and care services and meet these needs.
Recently, Tunstall supported learning disability charity Hft to unite the tech and care industries and unveil a case for the learning disability sector. As people with learning disabilities often experience the greatest barriers to care and support, we’ve created a report focusing on realising the potential of technology to boost investment and transform the way care is delivered.
At Tunstall we have long been aware of how technology can improve services and giving people greater opportunities to access different services is a significant benefit.
Technology such as apps and video consultations as mentioned in the CQC report, or proactive outbound calling programmes, can allow people to easily access the help and care they need.
For many people employed in health and social care, workloads can be high and traditional methods of care can often exacerbate this. Technology empowers staff and helps them to give person-centred care with ease.
Connected Care and Connected Health solutions can enable the delivery of efficient, flexible and responsive care. As well as enabling independence and improving outcomes, it can also relieve staff workloads, reduce costs and free up time for more meaningful interactions.
Technology can improve people’s experiences of care no matter what service they need, or where they’re living. Integrated technology can monitor and understand the behaviour patterns of people in need of care. This in turn means that stakeholders can be alerted quickly if an issue arises, therefore users can live independently and safely for longer and the demand for statutory services can be reduced.
Information sharing is crucial if we are to gain insight into what care and support individuals need and how independent services need to integrate to improve care delivery. However, without technology this can only be achieved to a certain extent, therefore limiting our understanding of what exactly is needed to make our services work as efficiently as they can.
Technology allows organisations to deliver efficient care in the community, whilst also enhancing the cost-effectiveness and quality of care in a number of ways, for example, significantly increasing the range of choices available to people to self-manage and remain independent at home for longer.
In conclusion, it has long been recognised that the health and social care sectors are in crisis and at a financial tipping point. Realising the potential of technology solutions to change the lives of people in need of support, is vital if we are to enable new models of care which are more person-centred, preventative and sustainable. The economic benefits are also wide-ranging and significant and, introducing technology to this sector is necessary if health and adult social care services are to survive and thrive.
To hear more about how technology can benefit health and care services in the UK, please email hello@tunstall.com.
