We’re taking a look at the opportunities tech has to help modernise health and social care to make access much smoother for us all. We will share with you some stories about how different local authorities, together with their health and third-sector partners are looking to technology to make this all a little easier.

Meeting demand and improving accessibility

Managing demand and improving people’s access to services are two objectives which don’t always pull in the same direction. Often, there is tension between these priorities.

On the one hand, the financial situation for many authorities leaves them needing to make heartbreaking trade-offs between who receives care and who doesn’t, as the bar to qualify for council funded services becomes ever higher.

On the other hand there is a desire to help people (whether they are supported by their council or not) to find the help they need as easily as possible. Preferably this could be done without too much assistance from their local authority.

Whilst we appreciate that a digital ‘front door’ is not for everyone, there are some great examples beginning to emerge. These all make it much easier for us and our families and friends to find the help we need, without grappling through the depths of a website.

What if we could choose our own care?

In our first blog, we mentioned the work being conducted by The Tribe Project which is redefining the way people find and choose the care that they need. Initially, this work is in some rural parts of the country as a result of ‘care blackspots’.

The Tribe platform puts the individual and their family in the driving seat. It allows them to select the help they need from a range of relevantly qualified local people and volunteers. Importantly, this could be a range of different services, not necessarily the kind of things we’d traditionally think of as care, but things which we as individuals identify we need help with to be happier and healthier.

Tribe works both for people whose care is funded by the authority but also appeals to people who can fund it themselves. No matter who is paying, we all want a say in what is most important to us, who helps us, and when they do.

Future plans for the platform include smarter ways to deal with the financial transactions surrounding care. These would be underpinned by blockchain. This could also improve the financial and compliance positions of local authorities as they seek to devolve more and more responsibility to individuals and their families.

Tribe also works for carers and volunteers who can receive training via the platform, adapting their working patterns to their own needs.

The introduction of digital assistants

Authorities are really starting to get to grips with the opportunities that digital assistants present. They help find salient information about what we need and also support people through the often complex processes involved in accessing help.

Work is being done by East Sussex County Council and ICS.AI to make it easier for people to sort out their eligibility for Blue Badges – and to get hold of them. They are developing an assistant to help people find the right information from both the Council’s website and from the Government’s. It will be able to track the progress of an existing application, upload missing documentation, and check for updates.  This will make it easier for people (and their carers) to sort out the help they need. It also means that staff will have more time to support people via other routes.

Elsewhere, digital assistants are being actively explored to help people find what they need and more importantly perhaps, things which they enjoy doing. Recognising the devastating impact which loneliness can have on our health, Suffolk Council and Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Trust are providing a digital assistant to help people in their area to access services, and stay up to date with what’s going on.

Simply by chatting to an assistant, people in the area can find out about events in their neighbourhood. It also tells them how to get there and gives public transport timetables. This service is available on any device – so no one is left out. It’s early days, but the hope is that people’s mental and physical health will be improved by connecting them more effectively to help. It also aims to reduce strain on local health and care services because users can access what they need when they need it.

Bringing people together

Meanwhile Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire and Surrey Councils are using a digital platform to connect people who feel lonely with others who can give them a hand, or with others who might be in the same boat.

The Ami platform empowers people to find help when they need it, and in so doing fosters a sense of community. It recruits volunteers who want to help lonely and socially isolated people do their shopping, get to appointments, or just have a chat over a cup of tea.

In the future, Ami will enable volunteers to connect with each other and receive reminders of local, one-off opportunities as they arise.

These simple tools help empower people to combat isolation and loneliness, while making it easier for volunteers to find those requesting help.

Keep value at the heart of digital projects

Sometimes digital projects can feel overwhelmingly large. There can also be concerns from our citizens or customers that their focus is all around reducing costs. However, when delivered with service improvement and people’s needs at the heart, these things are not mutually exclusive.

Successful digital projects are the ones that leverage technology and tools to improve services while keeping people needs, business goals, and values at heart.

Find out more

Download the whitepaper: Smart and Connected Health and Social Care

Discover how to transform patient outcomes with AI 

About the authors

Helena is Microsoft UK’s Local and Regional Government Industry Lead. She is passionate about the positive impact which technology, sensitively applied, can have on communities and cities of the future. Helena’s remit at Microsoft involves looking at how technology can help transform public services, particularly integrated health and social care, and leading on Microsoft’s smart cities programme in the UK.

The post Using technology to address loneliness and help people access council services more easily appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

This blog is the first in a series where we will shine a light on some of these ‘different things’. We’ll take a virtual tour up and down the UK to explore stories of new ways of working, partnerships and of course the role which data, AI and digital are playing in this field. Change is happening, not only in service transformation, (because you’d be right to expect that) but also in how digital is paving the way for consumers of care to make our own choices about the sort of care which really matters to us – after all, this will be all of us one day. So where will we be stopping off?

With many services currently experiencing more ‘front doors’ than citizens can cope with, there are some substantial changes in the way which organisations are thinking about how services of the future will be accessed by those seeking help. An increasing number of authorities are looking to AI-driven virtual assistant services (aka bots) to support people in helping themselves by, for example, using this technology to suggest appropriate assistive technology which can help people in the home. Newcastle City Council’s Adult Social Care Equipment bot is one of the first of its kind, with similar technology popping up elsewhere in the country.

Others are bringing the power of AI and blockchain to help people source the care they want close to their own homes, and in doing so are beginning to address the issue of care ‘blackspots’ which leave many people without any care at all. Using the Tribe Project’s platform, individuals in pilot sites in Dorset Council and Shropshire Council can choose how to spend their care budget on support delivered from carers in their local area, people they trust to support them at the time and in the way they most need help.

North of the border in Dumfries and Galloway, exploring and deepening partnerships between the sector, the IT industry and academia have given rise to a new breed of assistive technology which goes beyond detecting falls to actually predicting the likelihood of them happening – Loreburn Housing, supported by ARMED technology managed to eradicate falls during tests. This is a genuine step forward in using technology to enable early intervention in order to prevent (or delay) the otherwise seemingly inevitable journey into increasingly costly care pathways.

A little further south,  Manchester City Council, together with health partners forming the Manchester Care Organisation are looking to evolve their integrated health and care approach through a data platform to manage and respond to real time needs from people whilst they are still in the community. Putting a focus on supporting people wherever possible to stay in their homes supported by family and friends, the integrated team is looking to make its combined data work for the benefit of the whole system and for the people of Manchester delivering a person centred, data driven ‘whole system’ approach. This is a truly different way of delivering health and care and should be of interest to Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships and Integrated Care Systems up and down the country.

We hope that you will find this series of blogs useful and that you will enjoy reading this UKAuthority whitepaper which showcases some other examples of innovation in health and care.

If you would like more information, please comment below to get in touch or reach out to your Microsoft Account Manager.

Find out more

Download the whitepaper: Smart and Connected Health and Social Care

Discover how to transform patient outcomes with AI 

About the author

Helena is Microsoft UK’s Local and Regional Government Industry Lead. She is passionate about the positive impact which technology, sensitively applied, can have on communities and cities of the future. Technology embedded in the fabric and infrastructure of our lives should help improve our day to day experiences, but it must do so in a way which helps us build a strong sense of community with those around us, encouraging a shared sense of ownership about our immediate environment, and on those further afield. Helena’s remit at Microsoft involves looking at how technology can help transform public services, particularly integrated health and social care, and leading on Microsoft’s smart cities programme in the UK. During her ten years at Microsoft, Helena has worked in various public sector focused roles, working with a mixture of start ups and major commercial organisations serving the public sector and with local government customers in the UK on their digital transformation activities. Prior to Microsoft, Helena managed a number of large change programmes and is well versed in the importance of the people side of change and transformation. 

The post How technology is modernising health and social care appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.