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Good telecare item on this lunchtime’s You and Yours. Go to ‘Listen Again’ on the programme’s website and navigate to the day and item. You will need Real Player (available from the BBC site) installed to be able to listen.
Professor Ian Philp, National Director for Older People, launched today A New Ambition for Old Age, marking the second phase of the National Service Framework (NSF) for Older People. It sets out how older people’s services should improve in the next five years. The report has a only couple of passing references to telecare…so much for ambition.
Download the report from the Department of Health website.
There is also a link to a resource document (and/or website?) which is not functioning correctly at the time of posting.
A good local news story for Derby Care Link. Well done. BBC story.
Full marks to the care home and to a determined bird-watching resident. BBC story.
Organisers of the recent Med-e-tel Conference in Luxemburg have posted presentations and papers for your to browse. Med-e-tel website.
The EU’s IST@HOME project has concluded that to be truly effective video communications needed to be further integrated with other devices such as alarm systems.
The good news: Telehealth study of 216 people begins
Carematix and the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing to conduct a four-year study on the effectiveness of telehome monitoring. The study is funded by a grant for more than $1 million from the National Institute of Nursing Research. Read the press release.
The bad news: Home care progress thrown into reverse
The ‘Community Choice’ project began in Philadelphia in 2003. It shortened applications for in-home care from 24 pages to four, and expedited clinical assessments so that people could receive services within 24 hours instead of months. Hospital discharge planners were trained to help people return home instead of automatically referring them to nursing homes…equipment was installed in houses to monitor the vital signs of patients, particularly those with chronic conditions, to avoid costly hospitalizations…After those changes, the number of people receiving in-home services grew from 12,071 to 20,569 over three years. Then, suddenly, things stopped. The planned statewide expansion of the Community Choice project and the use of health-monitoring devices was halted and new restrictions on eligibility - such as prohibiting terminally ill patients from receiving personal care at home - were enacted.
Philly.com news item.
A reclusive pensioner who lay dead in his Cheshunt home for over seven weeks before being discovered, may have been saved if he had reached out for help from local community services - it emerged this week.
Ron Salmon, 75, whose badly decomposing corpse was found by horrified Broxbourne Council workers at his flat in quiet Laburnum Close, had a pull cord community alarm at his home, which he could press in case of an emergency.
A hi-tech project which could be a life-saver for older people has been unveiled in Cheshire. Sensors can detect falls, a gas leak and even a pan left on the stove. Read more from the Chester Chronicle.