Telecare Aware has moved – see below

At last we have finished wading through the 236 pages of the White Paper Our Health, Our Care, Our Say: A New Direction for Community Services to sniff out the implications for telecare and telehealth in England. Our main conclusion is that the White Paper is disappointing because of the lack of a coherent, fundamental vision of social services, health services, housing and other service providers working together to produce radical, preventive services. It does contain good news for people interested in the telecare and telehealth agenda — but it is hard to find.

Follow this link to download our 7 page briefing paper.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s Social Exclusion Unit report Inclusion Through Innovation (January 2006) highlights how technology can be used to tackle health problems by supporting front line health professionals, providing people with access to information and support, and helping people to maintain their independence.

Link to SEU website.

Suffolk County Council, which has won government plaudits for the quality of its Supporting People service, has shocked providers by withdrawing funding for emergency alarm systems in older peoples’ homes. It has warned housing associations that it will stop paying for community alarms from April this year.

A spokesperson for the ODPM said it was not for the department to directly intervene ‘where decisions on local priorities have been taken by commissioning bodies…However, the ODPM will clearly be concerned where decisions such as this have implications for many vulnerable people who have received a community alarm service for many years and may not have the resources to pay for the service themselves.’ Suffolk was only facing a 2 per cent cut, he added.

Inside Housing report.