Telecare: English Councils Cannot Afford Their Telecare Plans
Councils up and down the UK have been awarded a grant to help get up to 160,000 new people benefitting from telecare and preventative technology. At £500 per person the grant sounds like a lot, but in fact probably will not be sufficient to cover all the costs associated with implementing their plans.
Halifax, Yorkshire, England (PRWEB) March 17, 2006
James Batchelor, Managing Director of Alertacall Ltd, today challenged English councils with social services responsibility which will be in receipt of the Preventative Technology Grant (PTG) from April 2006 with the possibility that the grant will not be sufficient to cover all the costs associated with implementing their plans to introduce telecare into their mainstream services and, at the same time, to achieve the Department of Health’s target number of people to benefit from the grant.
In a letter sent to directors of adult social care services he said:
“…the PTG gives you £500 to spend per person. (£80 million divided by 160,000 people.) £500 per person may sound generous, but it isn’t. The cost of equipment may realistically be only one third to a quarter of what you need to allow when you take into account all your change management costs for staff training, service re-design, setting up response services, etc.
“A typical, simple telecare equipment package costs £200 - £350. Therefore, you should be considering spending more like £850 per person. That is an extra £350 per person to find in addition to your PTG funding. If you are anticipating supporting people with ‘high level’ care needs, such as those with dementia, where the potential cost-benefit from reducing residential care is most attractive, you will need to spend considerably more.”
James then went on to explain how his company, Alertacall, could help release PTG funding to spend on high level care people (such as those with dementia) who are often a priority for telecare plans. Alertacall can do this by providing low-cost telecare packages to councils which they could give to people to self-install. In doing so, councils could easily meet half their telecare population target and still have up to £960 available to spend on the rest. They would also be making a strong contribution to local prevention strategies – the very point of the Preventative Technology Grant. The scheme is therefore in tune with the aims of the recent Government White Paper Our Health, Our Care, Our Say.
Alertacall’s public website, where people can listen to endorsement of Alertacall by Claire Rayner and sign up for Alertacall’s service, is: http://www. alertacall. com (http://www. alertacall. com)
Contact
James Batchelor
Managing Director
Alertacall Ltd.
Web: http://www. alertacall. com (http://www. alertacall. com)
Phone: Freephone 0808 156 5779
Notes for editors
1) Full details of Alertacall’s offer to councils are available via a password-protected website. Journalists who would like to be given access or find out more information, should contact James Batchelor.
2) Alertacall Ltd. is the company that has developed and provides the Alertacall service and it was incorporated in England in the summer of 2004. The company is based in Halifax, Yorkshire, England.
The Alertacall concept was conceived after a period of growing concern by the company's founder for the safety of two relatives who both live independently, one of which is elderly and the other who has from a chronic illness. What he discovered was that no service existed to help deal with these concerns day-to-day, at least not one that met three very important criteria:
A) the service should not require the user to have to carry anything at any time
B) it must not rely on the user having to actively request help because they might not be able to do so. When people cannot request help that's probably when it's needed!
C) it should be low cost and affordable, so that it can benefit a wide range of people
Alertacall was created to address all these requirements and was launched after a period of extensive testing.
3) Telecare grew out of the social (pendant) alarms industry that most people are familiar with in sheltered housing-type schemes. It is defined as ‘the continuous, automatic and remote monitoring of real time emergencies and lifestyle changes over time in order to manage the risks associated with independent living’. Telecare equipment ranges from devices a person triggers themselves to raise an alert to a control centre, to systems that monitor the person’s well-being and/or environment.
4) Preventative Technology Grant. During the financial years 2006/7 and 2007/8 councils with social services responsibilities in England will be receiving a Preventative Technology Grant of £30 million and £50 million respectively (£80 million in total). It was announced by Chancellor Gordon Brown in his Spending Review Announcement, June 2004, in which he said councils were expected to benefit 160,000 or more people by the introduction of telecare technology into their care packages and support systems. Councils received details of their individual Preventative Technology Grant amounts in December 2005.
Http://www. dh. gov. uk/assetRoot/04/12/41/38/04124138.pdf (http://www. dh. gov. uk/assetRoot/04/12/41/38/04124138.pdf)
5) Building Telecare in England was guidance on the use of the Preventative Technology Grant by the Department of Health, published July 2005.
Http://www. dh. gov. uk/PolicyAndGuidance/HealthAndSocialCareTopics/OlderPeoplesServices/OlderPeopleArticle/fs/en? CONTENT_ID=4116208&chk=g6m5JL (http://www. dh. gov. uk/PolicyAndGuidance/HealthAndSocialCareTopics/OlderPeoplesServices/OlderPeopleArticle/fs/en? CONTENT_ID=4116208&chk=g6m5JL)
6) White Paper Our Health; Our Care, Our Say: A New Direction for Community Services Published by Department of Health 31 January 2006. Sets out intentions for health and social care service reform.
Http://www. dh. gov. uk/PublicationsAndStatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidanceArticle/fs/en? CONTENT_ID=4127453&chk=NXIecj (http://www. dh. gov. uk/PublicationsAndStatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidanceArticle/fs/en? CONTENT_ID=4127453&chk=NXIecj)
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