Telecare

Telecare helps increase independence, allowing people with a wide range of conditions to remain in their own homes safely, and giving greater support and peace of mind to their carers. Individual pieces of telecare support can:

• Reduce risk for those living at home
• Prompt rapid and appropriate response to emergencies
• Manage specific conditions
• Delay admission to residential or nursing care
• Enable safer discharge from hospital or care

Telecare helps create efficiencies by allowing resources that would otherwise be spent on domiciliary, hospital, residential or nursing care to be allocated elsewhere in the health and social care system. Savings can be made across agencies, for example by reducing avoidable hospital admissions in the NHS. Many councils are already adopting individual pieces of technology or incorporating telecare into elements of their services, making efficiency savings in the process:

• Cheshire East (£198k Learning Disabilities)
• Bury (£97k Learning Disabilities)

There is significant scope to expand and build on services across all groups of service users. Some authorities are making significant savings by building their telecare offer across all their adult care services.

• North Yorkshire (£1.1m)
• Essex (£190k)
• Northamptonshire (£1.5m over 2 years)
• Nottingham City (£475k)

Telecare initiatives are underway in both Wales and Scotland where savings of £11.15m above investment have been identified.

• Implementing telecare to achieve efficiencies
  A summary of how telecare can be used to achieve significant efficiencies and improvements in the use of resources
• Telecare - supporting independence - promoting efficiency
  CSED presentation outlining the use of telecare in efficiency delivery