Skip Links: Information Framework, Engagement Findings, Benchmarking Impact 22, Proactive Telecare, Partnership Approach to Fire Safety, Benchmarking Impact 21, Assessment and Support Planning, Safer Walking, Access to Service Users’ Homes, Call Handling Reports, TEC Experiences and Aspirations, Alzheimer Scotland Consumer Technology, Falls Films, Telecare Benchmarking, Telecare Asset Management, Telecare Links
Telecare Information Framework for Scotland
The Framework, formerly termed the Scottish Telecare Minimum Dataset, comprises an agreed core set of defined fields which capture information that illustrates how people use telecare services. The intelligence which can be gleaned from the data in the Framework will help services to:
make decisions about care for individuals, plan and develop their services and contribute to the national picture about the impact of telecare for the people who use it and for the services which are connected to it.
This has been co-designed by service providers using the Scottish Approach to Service Design. It has also been designed to allow for further iteration as services evolve and appropriate governance arrangements are being put in place.
Documents
Telecare Information Framework for Scotland v1.0 (2023, pdf)
Telecare Information Framework Launch Presentation (2023, pdf)
Third and Independent Sector Telecare Stakeholder Engagement Findings
Telecare Services in Scotland are in a period of change. As they move towards using digital phone lines, new equipment and the possible inclusion of consumer technologies, there are opportunities for services to deliver in a different way, making sure that they are meeting the needs of their customers now, and into the future.
As they consider this redesign, it’s important for them to hear from the people who do, or might, use a Telecare Service. The Technology Enabled Care Programme offered a small grant to third and independent sector organisations to undertake some engagement work on behalf of Telecare Service Providers. We recognise that not everyone feels comfortable or able to engage with statutory bodies, so we asked the organisations who meet and speak to those people on a regular basis, and have their trust, to have a conversation with them and tell us what they would like to see from Telecare Services.
This report outlines the collective response from those people, and will be shared with Service Providers to help them understand what their customers’ priorities are to help them shape their services to meet those needs.
Documents
Telecare Engagement Activity – Findings (2023, pdf)
Benchmarking Impact Report 2021/22 (2022, pdf)
Proactive Telecare Phase 1 and 2 – Summary and Full Report
The University of the West of Scotland have completed their evaluation report on Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the Proactive Telecare Outbound Calling Tests of Change Project.
This is the evaluation summary report which highlights the impact; feasibility; readiness to scale; and customer, carer and staff experience feedback as well as the full evaluation report.
This evaluation was commissioned and jointly funded by the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI) and the TEC Programme.
Documents
PT Board Evaluation Summary Report – v1.0 (2023, pdf)
Evaluating Proactive Telecare Final v2 (2023, pdf)
A Partnership Approach to Fire Safety: Good Practice Guide (2022, pdf)
Assistance for Home Owners to Install Interlinked Heat and Smoke Detectors and CO Detectors
Please note: the system fitted by Care and Repair or the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (described below) will need to be in addition to the telecare system, not instead of the telecare system, as it does not connect to a call handler in an alarm receiving centre.
Care and Repair
If you are older or have disabilities you may qualify for assistance from your local Care and Repair service. Not all areas of Scotland have a Care & Repair service. Details of the local offices are available here – www.careandrepairscotland.co.uk/office-locations.html
To be eligible for support from Care & Repair, you must live and own your home with a Council Tax banding of A-C. You must also either be of state pension age and in receipt of guaranteed Pension Credit or have a disability and be in a support group for Employment and Support Allowance.
Care and Repair will also provide and fit systems for older people and people with disabilities for a charge (around £250-£300).
Free Home Fire Safety visits from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS)
To protect the most vulnerable, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service will only fit interlinked alarms into owner-occupied homes where a person/household is assessed as “high risk” through a SFRS Home Fire Safety Visit assessment process.
If the person/ household does not meet these criteria, SFRS staff will provide safety advice, information and details of the revised legislation during the visit. Interim detection can also be supplied if the property has no detectors at present.
To request a Home Fire Safety Visit contact SFRS on 0800 0731999 or text “FIRE” to 80800
Please contact us at nss.tec@nhs.scot for more information or if you have any questions or feedback.
Benchmarking Impact Report 2020/21 (2021, pdf)
Assessment & Support Planning: Telecare eLearning Module
The module is hosted on NES’s Turas platform. If you have a Turas account, the module can be accessed here.
For colleagues who do not have an account, it can be created via the following link Turas | Sign up (b2clogin.com)
This eLearning module has been created to increase the awareness, knowledge, and confidence of the health and social care workforce to better understand the role of telecare in assessment and support planning.
Developed by the Technology Enabled Care (TEC) team in collaboration with NHS Education for Scotland (NES), the module takes around 45 minutes to complete. It provides information and practice examples (including short videos) of how telecare can support outcomes focussed care options. These options are personalised and support individuals to live safely and independently. The use of telecare also provides reassurance to family and carers.
The module is designed for those whose role may include outcomes focussed assessments and support planning. It is also a great way to learn more about how telecare can support models of service delivery within the wider workforce and enhance health and care services.
Learning outcomes include:
- Recognising how telecare can contribute to achieving personal outcomes for individuals and their families.
- Considering the benefits of telecare in reducing organisational pressures.
- Being able to identify telecare solutions to manage associated risks.
- Confidently communicate with individuals and carers about the different types of telecare that can support health and wellbeing.
- Understanding the importance of agreed response protocols.
- Reviewing the effectiveness of existing telecare solutions.
If you require further information, please contact nss.tec@nhs.scot
Safer Walking
Enjoying ordinary everyday life, getting out and about, feeling independent and safe and secure is important to every citizen.
Living with dementia can bring its own challenges. For example it is estimated that 40% of people with dementia will experience feeling lost or getting lost. 5% of people with dementia repeatedly feel lost or get lost. However, many of these challenges can be met by using some of the Technology Enabled Care (TEC) products that are available today.
The purpose of TEC is to make use of a wide range of technology to enhance health, wellbeing and care so that people feel safe and confident at home and in their community. A package of technology can be tailored to meet individual requirements and can let carers and families know how a person is doing – or if they need help.
Whilst the focus of this Note is on how Safer Walking TEC can support people living with dementia to lead as full a life as possible, it is recognised that the information in this document could have an application across other care groups who may also benefit from Safer Walking TEC – such as people with cognitive impairment, learning difficulties and some long-term conditions.
Document
Safer Walking – Practice Support Note (2021, pdf)
Access to Service Users’ Homes for Telecare Response
This document (2020, pdf) sets out good practice to improve service delivery in the implementation of care, support and emergency response services associated with the delivery of telehealth and telecare services.
Telecare Call Handling Reports
Telecare continues to represent a vital means of providing care and support at home in Scotland. Previous studies conducted by Farrpoint and Deloitte identified considerable variation in the approaches to call handling taken across Scotland, and recommended further analysis.
The Scottish Government and COSLA commissioned Farrpoint to conduct this further analysis through a review of telecare call handling services. Following this review, we are pleased to include below, a letter from Margaret Whoriskey and John Wood, along with part 1 and 2 of the final report.
Documents
Telecare call handling review SG-COSLA letter (2020, pdf)
Telecare Call Handling Review Final Report Part-1 (2020, pdf)
Telecare Call Handling Review Final Report Part 2 (2020, pdf)
Technology Enabled Care Experiences and Aspirations – Engagement Report
This report (2021, pdf) details the outcomes of engagement with current and potential users of telecare services in Scotland. We asked participants about their experiences of using telecare, and what they would like to see from a service in the future. The group was self-selected after communications sent on our behalf by The Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE).
This is the first in a series of engagements which will be held in order to support the co-design of telecare services by providers across Scotland.
Alzheimer Scotland Consumer Technology Test of Change Report
Alzheimer Scotland has evolved a deep understanding of the needs of people who would like to use consumer technologies; off the shelf items, to support them to live independently.
Prior to this piece of work, a national Test of Change was carried out involving several cross-sector partners across the country looking at the efficacy of consumer tech in meeting the aspirations of individuals and families living with a range of long term health conditions. It focused on prevention and self-management and the potential for these devices to delay the need for more formal support.
That led to the creation of ADAM (About Digital and Me) which is an online trusted resource helping people to find the right thing at the right time, based on the lived experience of others with similar wants and needs.
This report builds on that experience and considers how these technologies might be used by citizens independently or in partnership with their Telecare Service Provider at any stage of a user journey, examines how these “ready to use” technologies actually function for those who need a non-standard set up and creates a Consumer Technology Playbook to support those working in this field who might be considering how to incorporate the use of consumer technology to their range of services.
It also raises questions on how best to support the development of services to utilise these technologies and creating the conditions required for successful adoption and long-term use.
This document has been optimised for download. For a high resolution version, please contact us.
Document
Alzheimer Scotland Consumer Tech Playbook and Evaluation (2021, pdf)
TEC Programme Falls Films
Anyone can fall, and every fall is different. These two short films to help people find out what to do if they fall, or if they’re helping someone who has fallen.
Upwards and Onwards
In this film viewers hear from people who’ve been through it themselves about how to get up after a fall, and what to do if you’re hurt or can’t get up.
The full video is 19 minutes long long. We’ve created extracts too.
How to Get Up
If You Can’t Get Up
Every Fall is Different
Prevent
What to Do if Someone Falls
In the What to Do if Someone Falls film, viewers hear from people who’ve been through it themselves about what to do if you’re helping someone who has fallen.
Who are the resources for?
The resources target:
- People who may be at increased risk of falling – predominantly but not exclusively people of 50+.
- Telecare key holders/volunteer responders.
- Family, friends and unpaid carers.
- The wider public.
Using and embedding the films
The films are all on our YouTube channel and can be embedded in any website.
Telecare Benchmarking Information
Telecare Benchmarking is funded by the Scottish Government’s Technology Enabled Care (TEC) Programme and is delivered in partnership with Scotland’s Housing Network (SHN).
Benchmarking is an essential business improvement tool. It allows for businesses, big or small, private or public sector, whole organisations or individual departments to evaluate their strengths and areas for improvement in a comparative way. By following a structured benchmarking process, businesses are able to derive evidence-based self-improvement plans that match their business goals, whatever they may be.
Benchmarking for Telecare Services allows you to eliminate assumptions about how well you are performing, and ultimately meeting the needs of your service users and funding stakeholders.
To participate in Telecare Benchmarking, you provide SHN with a fixed dataset, that has been agreed, and is kept under review, by the TEC Programme, SHN and the range of participating HSCPs.
SHN are experts in the field of benchmarking, they use their Business Intelligence Tool to analyse your data, and crucially, benchmark this against other HSCPs nationally. You can see your absolute and comparative performance in the different aspects of service delivery.
This information provides you with the evidence base you need to develop robust and meaningful self-improvement plans. The evidence base removes any guess work and provides confidence and reassurance as to where you are performing well. The evidence allows you to allocate scarce resources in areas that most need improvement and provides the evidence base needed to secure any additional funding. It provides evidence that you can use to promote your telecare service to users and future users, enhancing your communication capabilities with your service users and their families and carers.
Data is collected on your service, installations, withdrawals, usage and customer satisfaction. Our benchmarking data is collected and analysed quarterly, allowing you to make in-year adjustments to your service. As part of the commitment from SHN, we offer a free bespoke site visit to show you how to best make use of the tool; “it’s easy when you know how”.
You will also be invited to attend and participate in quarterly Telecare Benchmarking workshops, where you have the opportunity to meet and work with other HSCPs participating in Telecare Benchmarking.
Telcecare Benchmarking enables self-improvement, through an evidence-based comparative analysis.
Document
Telecare Benchmarking Info (2020, pdf)
Good Practice Guide to Telecare Asset Management
Scotland is one of the few countries in Europe with a national strategic approach to the development of telehealth and telecare services. The National Telehealth and Telecare Delivery Plan for Scotland to 2015 was developed with partners from health, social care, housing and the third and independent sectors to provide a clear strategic direction for the use of technology to support health and social care delivery in Scotland.
The Plan recognised the importance of sharing good practice across the whole system and, specifically within its Workstream 6 – Exchange Learning, Develop and Embed Good Practice identified the need to develop good practice guidance across a range of areas, including Asset Management. The specific brief in the Plan was to:
Develop guidelines and standards for asset management – including equipment storage, maintenance / repair, battery replacement.
The term “asset management” is used to describe how equipment is procured, stored, tested, maintained, decommissioned and recycled. Asset management enables service providers to maximise control over equipment, create efficiency and minimise equipment loss.
This Guide recognises that appropriate asset management of telecare and other technology enabled care (TEC) equipment is an essential component of safe, effective and consistent care service provision.
Document
Good Practice Guide to Telecare Asset Management (2015, pdf)
Telecare Links
The following external links provide useful information or tools relating to the TEC Telecare programme:
- Telecare Self-Check Online Tool – an easy-to-use online tool that allows users to find helpful information on telecare services in their area, that could help them live independently at home for longer.
- Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s Improvement Hub (ihub) Impact Report 2017-18
- Overnight Support – Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s Improvement Hub (ihub) project to redesign overnight support for people who may need reassurance and practical help during the night time hours.
- TECH – Technology Enabled Care in Housing Charter
- TSA – the representative body for technology enabled care (TEC) services, working on behalf of and advising organisations including telecare and telehealth providers, suppliers, housing associations, care providers, emergency services, academia, charities, government bodies and health and social care commissioners.
- CECOPS – a user-led, independent, not-for-profit certification and standards body, aiming to raise the standard of all assistive technology related services across the UK, and beyond.