Our Journey to Digital Telecare – Perth and Kinross Council
Key drivers for transitioning to digital telecare:
- Analogue to digital switchover planned for 2025;
- Alarm Receiving Centre replacement in 2016 to the Jontek Answer Link System was also capable of being “digitally ready”;
- Being digitally ready for the switchover.
High level steps to enable key drivers:
- Secured funding from Scottish Government to commence a Pilot Project;
- Obtained internal approval to commence Pilot Project;
- Arranged upgrades and enhancements to current Jontek ARC system – the majority of which was to Disaster Recovery Facility;
- Purchased 10 digital units and related peripherals each from 3 identified suppliers for the Pilot Project for initial testing to determine best performance.
Partners:
- A mix of internal and external stakeholders:
- Internal: IT, Community Alarm, Information Security and Technology Enabled Card Steering Group;
- External: Digital Office for Scottish Government, The City of Edinburgh Council, East Lothian Council, Farrpoint, Jontek, Doro and Possum.
Key challenges and overcoming them:
- Basic Community Alarm package included a smoke and heat detector which were also required for testing with delays in obtaining these digitally ready peripherals;
- Geography, as Perth has a lot of rural areas and testing units still requires a lot of consideration in these areas;
- Communication has been a challenge however building a robust project management structure around the project internally has addressed this and ensured that stakeholders are informed of progress;
- Concerns over security and privacy impact was and continues to be a major challenge.
Next steps in digital telecare journey:
- Close to commencing testing;
- Virtual Private Networks have been set up but there are some teething issues with traffic flowing between the servers;
- In house testing of units before moving out into the Perth and Kinross area.
Published date: April 2020.