Birmingham telecare service celebrates first anniversary

The success of a telecare service in Birmingham has led to plans to invest in telehealth technologies in the future.

Birmingham City Council has celebrated the first anniversary of its joint citywide telecare service, which has to date benefited 7,000 people across the city.

The Birmingham Telecare Service (BTS), which aims to support 27,000 people by 2015, enables residents with a wide range of needs to remain living independently in their own homes.

We’re holding to our ambition that social care is about the quality of life that people experience, and we’re doing so against a context where we’re seeing a dramatic fall in our resources. We’re not lowering our sights or our ambition, but to meet our objectives we need to do things differently

To celebrate the first anniversary, BTS hosted an event in partnership with Birmingham City Council, the Good Governance Institute, and telecare supplier, Tunstall, to enable service users to speak directly about their relationship with telecare= and share their experiences with other people using the= service.

Councillor Steve Bedser, cabinet member for health and wellbeing at Birmingham City Council, said: “I’ve not been to many first birthdays where I’ve felt this proud. This event was particularly important as it enabled 50 telecare service users from across the city to tell us about their experiences. It proved to be a fantastic opportunity to gather great feedback with masses of enthusiasm and ideas for how we can take telecare forward. We hope to extend the scope of services to those with learning disabilities or people living in residential care homes, and plan to introduce telehealth in the near future.”

At the event, Peter Hay, strategic director for adults and communities at Birmingham City Council, highlighted the importance of citizen engagement and how the integration of an independent quality assurance programme by the Good Governance Institute (GGI) is ensuring a service user approach to delivery.

The GGI is working with Birmingham City Council to develop a pioneering quality assurance programme centred on the needs of service users. The programme of work has at its heart the experience and participation of telecare service users themselves, designed to engage with service users and their advocates through an established independent quality review board, the Citizen’s Quality Advisory Group (CQAG), and direct contact with telecare service users, their families and carers.

Telecare is a crucial new opportunity to meet the needs of our residents in a cost-effective way

Hay said: “We’re holding to our ambition that social care is about the quality of life that people experience, and we’re doing so against a context where we’re seeing a dramatic fall in our resources. We’re not lowering our sights or our ambition, but to meet our objectives we need to do things differently.

“Telecare is a crucial new opportunity to meet the needs of our residents in a cost-effective way and events like this are great examples of how we are keen to listen, learn and improve what we do.”

Gerald, a carer for his wife and daughter, added: “I wasn’t sleeping because I was worried about my daughter, and I wouldn’t want to go out much as I wanted to make sure everything was okay at home. With telecare, I don’t need to worry about it, or phone someone every five minutes. The system will notify us if there is a problem.”

The Birmingham Telecare Service has commissioned a film in partnership with Tunstall and GGI, which provides highlights from the event and includes interviews with service users and senior level speakers from Birmingham City Council, Tunstall and GGI. Click here to view it.