Case Studiess

Our Journey to digital telecare – East Renfrewshire Council

Key drivers for transitioning to digital telecare:

• Upcoming analogue switch-off;
• Current Alarm Receiving Centre equipment and software is out-of-date and needs replaced therefore using as an opportunity to reassess what future telecare services could deliver, both now and in the future;
• Maximise the potential benefits from digital telecare.

Key challenges and overcoming them:

• A lot of time spent defining the project scope and working out which part of the organisation should ‘own’ the project. A ‘joint-ownership’ approach has been established, where the project is co-sponsored by social care and IT senior managers;
• As the project scope was refined and understood more fully, it was clear that one Project Lead was not enough and that the project was just not a technical one (i.e. it impacts on how housing and social care services are delivered and the fundamentals of interacting with telecare service users). A full team is being established to enable this transition, consisting of representation from across the organisation;
• As the digital telecare market is still developing, it is tricky to work out what services and products are currently available and ‘tried and tested’. To address this, ERC Procurement Team organised a number of online showcases from the main suppliers in the digital telecare market.

One ‘top tip’ based on the transition journey:

• It needs a bigger team of people than you may think. Senior Management must understand and support the project and a Project Team with a wide range of practical and technical expertise is required to ensure identification of any key project risks and maximise the benefits of digital telecare.

Next steps in digital telecare journey:

• Recruitment of a wider team to progress both the technical and service redesign aspects of the project;
• Procurement.

Published date: November 2020.