Lyn Romeo: I’ve been working with Tommy Reay-Henderson over the past 12 months or so, supporting social work apply to take advantage of digital expertise and technology-enabled care and assist. We wish individuals to reside independently in their very own houses for a protracted as potential.
There are numerous components to think about, so I’m very happy to welcome Tommy as our visitor blogger to stipulate the imperatives for social work apply and the assist accessible.
Tech options and social work
Know-how is taking part in an more and more essential function in how care and assist is delivered. As individuals’s wants change nevertheless, it’s essential expertise options supporting these wants are additionally reviewed.
Care applied sciences can be utilized by people, carers, native authorities, and care suppliers to assist high quality of life and the supply of top of the range, secure, and personalised care.
Rising numbers of individuals are benefiting from expertise options, serving to them reside independently in their very own houses. These can vary from specialist gadgets, together with falls prevention and detection, to sensible dwelling applied sciences many people use on a regular basis.
Telecare tools, together with wearable alarm gadgets, which may ship an alert to a name centre, play an essential function in supporting individuals to stay impartial in their very own houses, in addition to appearing as lifelines when emergency assist is required. Around 1.8 million people in the UK are using telecare devices.
Evaluate and adapt
When care wants change, expertise should adapt accordingly. Social staff may have to think about whether or not any gadgets in place to assist an individual’s care are nonetheless related within the wider context of their care plan, particularly if their well being is deteriorating.
For instance, an individual may need diminishing mobility, which might put them at elevated threat if there was a fireplace, particularly in the event that they smoked. Is there a telecare system already in place and is it suitable with a smoke alarm system? Does the change in circumstances imply there’s a must additionally make use of specialist gadgets, corresponding to these to forestall falls or different sensible dwelling applied sciences?
The place expertise is used most successfully, it’s thought-about an integral a part of good high quality, constant and secure care. Know-how which helps an individual’s care needs to be referenced in any related care planning documentation, or digital social care document. This not solely makes positive it’s embedded into an total strategy to care, it additionally means its use is reviewed and up to date as any preferences or wants change.
Our function as social staff
Social staff will proceed to play an more and more important function in using expertise inside grownup social care. We provide a novel perspective, one which holds expertise to account to the requirements, ethics and practices we ourselves adhere to. Reviewing care plans permits us to think about its use as a part of a person’s holistic care bundle, working with different native authority and care colleagues to supply top quality care.
Viewing expertise as a part of the care individuals may obtain goes to be a vital facet of selling top quality, secure and efficient assist in future. The dangers of seeing it via a siloed lens, disconnected from an individual’s expertise of care, comes with nice threat, but social staff can convey a optimistic, person-centred perspective to how it’s utilized by individuals drawing on care and assist.
We provide a novel perception into what person-centred care appears like. We perceive threat and produce wonderful systemic apply examples of how expertise can assist its supply.
As our world turns into more and more digitised, it’s essential to problem digital exclusion and ensure social staff have the abilities and coaching to grasp the function expertise performs in excellent care planning.
Discover our extra
The What Good Looks Like framework for grownup social care was printed in Could, developed as a part of DHSC and NHS England steering to assist well being and care organisations to maneuver ahead with digitisation.
This framework goals to convey collectively the wants of native authorities and care suppliers into one coherent steering doc that helps them to grasp what they should do to work effectively digitally. Social staff must also discover this publication helpful.
