The King’s Fund review of social care in England, Securing Good Care for Older People, led by Sir Derek Wanless, referred to in the White Paper Our Health, Our Care, Our say, was published today. TV, press and radio are giving most attention to the report’s recommendations on funding care but, importantly, it also gives an unequivocal endorsement of the need to include telecare in mainstream care services. The first recommendation in the Services and Service Re-configuration section says:
Read More
Monthly Archives March 2006
Channel 4 (UK): The Trouble with Old People
Monday to Thursday this week at 9.00 each evening, Channel 4 is running a series of documentaries under the banner ‘The Trouble with Old People’.
Read More
Opening a door to China? Last few days
2nd Euro-China Workshop on Home Networks and Platforms, Beijing, P.R. China 28-30 May 2006. Not totally sure, but this may interest telecare manufacturers. Participation paid for by the EU. Contact organisers by 31 March if you want to contribute through poster presentations.
Read More
Preventative Technology Grant determination and DIS published
The Department of Health has published the final, formal determination of the Preventative Technology Grant (PTG) funding.The publication coincide with the publication of the Delivery and Improvement Statement (DIS), Adult Social Care 2005/06 - Guidance
Read More
Alertacall offer to councils – further information
Last Friday we picked up and posted information about an Alertacall press release and contacted the company to find out more. We were given the username and password for access to the councils’ site which contains details of the proposal.
Read More
Docobo project at Barnsley
Forty chronic heart failure patients in Barnsley are using Docobo’s doc@HOME remote monitoring telehealth service, answering health and quality of life questions, and taking physiological measurements. Adrian Flowerday, MD of Docobo commented: “The team at Barnsley are one of the first in the UK to equip a significant number of patients with telehealth, and their careful and practical approach to the project is both innovative and bold.”
Read More
End-of-life financial burdens for families
This article starts with interesting statistics on the public's response to a BBC programme on long-term care costs. More evidence that under the divisive English system (which the White Paper failed to tackle), service users and carers play piggy-in-the-middle between health and social care services, to their cost.
Read More
Residential home telehealth kiosks (US)
Residents at Beverwyck assisted-living home in Albany get weekly checkups at an electronic kiosk in the lobby. "I want to make sure I'm alive every morning," jokes 87-year-old Thomas DiFrancesco…Though there is little hard data tracking its growth, there is mounting evidence that more people are using telemedicine. The number of companies manufacturing home telecare devices in the last three years has tripled to 15, and the Veterans Administration plans to double the number of patients it puts on home telecare to 20,000 during the next year…
Read More
Telecare Alliance website update
We have made a few changes to the structure of our main website to make it easier to find content by navigation, and added a ‘What is Telecare?’ page under ‘Telecare for you’.
Read More
Social care funds face shortfall
BBC report on social services finances
Read More