by Steve Sadler
Telecare was once seen as science fiction. But today, its use has helped adults to live safer, more independent lives
First aired in 1965, BBC's Tomorrow's World informed, instructed and entertained viewers with glimpses of how we would be living in the future.
One concept that has made it from the drawing-board to being a truly widespread, life-saving piece of technology is telecare, used by more than 1.6 million people in the UK alone. Councils are using telecare to transform health and social care delivery. For example, falls account for more than half of the A&E admissions to hospital for older people. Telecare solutions can manage the risks associated with falling and reduce some of the burden on acute care providers and ensure healthcare is used effectively.
One Scottish council has reduced the response time to falls to just over 22 minutes, compared with a four-hour national average, by deploying telecare in the homes of people with long-term needs, supporting a more timely and proactive model of care provision.
In the next few years, we will see wider implementation of more advanced home telecare units, which will enable more complex risks to be managed. Sensors will unobtrusively monitor individuals to provide indications of well-being and their ability to perform daily activities.
As we look five to 10 years into the future, advancements in technology will mean different kinds of assistive technology co-operating to provide consistent views of a person's needs, and automated support around the home. These developments should also lead to the emergence of smaller, cheaper, ubiquitous sensors around the home.
In some homes, this may extend as far as a "robotic" environment, where the supporting devices exhibit behaviour that is personalised to the needs of the user.
The UK government has shown it believes that telecare is an integral part of future health and social care, with its £80m funding of preventive technologies and three sites in Kent, Newham and Cornwall, supporting more than 7,500 people with long-term care needs.
Other large-scale trials have demonstrated that providing assistive technology at home along with home care support can more than halve the average stay in residential care.
This brings great benefits in terms of people's choice and independence and also saves money for local authority care providers, allowing valuable resources to be deployed more effectively in other areas of social care provision.
Steve Sadler is chief technical officer of Tunstall