Using Telecare and Telehealth to Support Individuals in Their Home
Angela Single
Choose Independence

Good afternoon everybody, thank you very much for inviting me today and I really enjoyed this morning and one of the things I am going to try and do and explain this afternoon is how we use technology to help our customers and clients and patients in both the Council in terms of telecare and the health arena in terms of telehealth. I love gadgets and gizmos and technology, I spend my life supporting healthcare professionals and councils and the health service to implement technology in the services they deliver and I think that's one of the hardest, most difficult things to do. You guys have the most wonderful technology and we have to be at there implementing it and service users love it as you will see on the video I am about to show and you sometimes I have to encourage clinicians, doctors and nurses and front line social care staff to think about using technology in supporting people in the home. One thing I said to the speakers before lunch, I loved the fact he was talking about the future, one of the things I am also doing is working with NHS direct where we are looking at using the Internet to support people in their wellness so actually we like to think we are spot on and contained it right. Enjoy the video and I will come back and discuss some aspects at the end.

(A video).

These make a huge difference to people's lives.  For example, in the telehealth area we know using it to monitor people's vital signs and help them understand their disease, we can save hospital admissions and for every one that we save we save the health service £3,000.  So the return on investment is quick.  In stopping falls or alerting them if we can get to people once they have fallen we stop them having hypothermia or deteriorating quickly and refer to other services like stop falls and help mobility.  By stopping falls, or stopping people having (inaudible) we know each hospital admission costs £2,500 and 50 per cent of people with a fractured hip will die within the next year, so we're I believe using technology to really change the way people live their lives and actually do save lives.  So that is my message this afternoon.