2024 is likely to be a significant year for both the telecare industry and housing providers as the digital phone switchover continues to roll out across the country. With the 2025 end-date in touching distance, what does this mean in practice?
Members of Appello’s senior leadership team discuss the challenges and opportunities the next twelve months may bring and look at how digital telecare fits into the wider picture of our health and social care services.
In conversation with:
– Gill Atkey, Industry & Customer Liaison Director (left in image above)
– Iain Hockings, Head of Marketing and Bids (right in image above)
– Mark Stratford, Group Product Director (middle in image above)
What has the last year meant for the telecare industry?
Gill Atkey: We had a situation where telecare equipment had not really changed for decades and the industry had been quite slow moving in adopting new technology. But 2023 has been significant as we’ve started to see a move to new digital products. However, a lot of the suppliers still need to catch up to be able to support this.
Mark Stratford: The industry has moved on in 2023. In particular, BT and Openreach have been doing much more work to raise awareness of the digital phone switchover. There had been a view that analogue equipment might work but the big industry players are now confirming this isn’t the case.
Iain Hockings: Yes, we’ve seen the network providers become clearer and more committed to the message that the move to digital is a requirement ahead of 2025. When we were joined by John Livermore from Openreach at our webinar in August, there was a strong message that the network will have migrated to digital by the end of 2025 and telecare equipment will need to be digital to be sure you’re delivering the safest service.
GA: From a personal perspective, it’s been a good time to move into a new role at Appello, using my knowledge of the industry to support the wider business. I set up a Monitoring Thinktank group in the autumn, bringing colleagues from the monitoring world together to look at the challenges for monitoring providers and how we can work with the TSA to enable monitoring centres to safely use new technologies that will enhance services. We’re asking how we can make services more robust and cost effective and what the industry need to do collectively to improve.
What do you think the key challenges will be over the next twelve months?
IH: 2025 suddenly feels within touching distance. I think we’ll see a heightened interest in digital services and most likely a level of anxiety, as there’s still some uncertainty around the implications of the network migrating to digital.
MS: Some of the biggest challenges are around what digital means. I get a lot of feedback from people that they know they need to do something but are not sure exactly what that looks like. And also understanding why built for digital is so important rather than trying to adapt analogue products.
GA: Yes, the key feedback out of the Monitoring Thinktank so far is that everyone is talking about digital and there’s so much information from suppliers but there’s a feeling that everyone is going to tell their own story. Education is needed around the different digital products available and their uses.
MS: The infrastructure is changing but what does the customer get from this? It’s important they can understand how digital is the foundation for a whole bunch of things they can do in the future.
GA: The industry has been used to analogue for a long time. Some re-education is needed, especially around cost-points. Paying analogue prices for digital doesn’t marry – they are very different products, as digital has much greater capabilities and is future proof.
IH: But budgets have been impacted by many factors in 2023, so the question will be how housing providers can move to digital most effectively so they and their customers can benefit from this.
MS: There are also challenges on the ground. Where there are dispersed alarms, it’s not an easy task for the end user to switch over – it’s not just a case of unplugging one and plugging in the other. Their service provider for example BT might be sending a new broadband router to them but they’re not necessarily understanding what they need to do with this. We worked with Wiltshire Council for the Salisbury rollout. They wrote to their customers but also put it on their website so friends and family could check the information. Then we were knocking on doors, testing everything was working as it should. Local authorities and housing providers are going to need to do more hand-holding – this will be a high priority so nobody falls through the gaps.
What is the role of digital telecare when considering the bigger picture of our health and social care services?
GA: We need to find ways to mitigate the performance pressures on the NHS. These have a knock-on effect on monitoring centres, as it means multiple or elongated calls to resolve problems where there’s a delay in the primary care services. We need to make sure that as an industry we’re all working to the same protocols to take that pressure off where we can. That means looking at the pathways/standard operation procedures to get the right outcomes. The Urgent Community Response teams (UCR) referrals are a great starting point. However, for a national provider there are 188 UCR teams to engage with and the services are not consistent across the NHS. Telecare monitoring centres hold data that can support. How do we support customers to stay at home, telecare is one part of the care pathway, and there most definitely needs to be more co-production of services and a multi-disciplinary approach to delivery across health, housing and tech.
MS: We need to be flexible with the care we deliver to reduce pressures on our health and care services. Once people need an element of care, that will increase over time but we can aim to plateau that. It’s not about reducing the care but finding other, better ways to deliver the care hours that we have available.
IH: Telecare has been proven to deliver better outcomes for health and social care but the vast majority of these scenarios are not delivered at scale. We need better alignment on how services are delivered regionally so there are consistent models rather than bespoke processes.
Information on the digital phone switchover ramped up during 2023. What’s your advice for supported housing providers and local authorities who haven’t yet upgraded their services?
IH: Unfortunately, I don’t feel the sector has made the progress needed in 2023 to catch-up. We know there’s great inequality amongst housing providers – we’re still speaking with customers who have very little awareness of the network changes and the potential implications, especially those smaller organisations who may not have resources dedicated to telecare services.
MS: But there should be a mad scramble to upgrade! We’re not far enough ahead and the reliability of analogue telecare services will become worse and worse. The impact on people’s health can be a hidden issue but relying on systems ‘maybe working’ is not enough.
GA: If you haven’t moved onto a digital call handling platform yet, you’ll see increased call failure rates. If the reasons for this are around cost, there are options available, such as outsourcing. But it’s important to invest in today to ensure your services are robust tomorrow – don’t put that investment off or put a sticking plaster over it.
IH: Cost will be very important in this climate, of course, but this shouldn’t be the deciding factor. Many providers who’ve approached us this year have seen that focusing on cost has only been to the detriment of their customers and now have a much greater focus on quality of service.
MS: From a practical perspective, you need to find out what equipment you have out in the field. Understand what you’ve got in place right now, what’s compatible and can be used safely. Then find a supplier with a strong track record. Make sure what you’re buying is approved by the British Standards Authority – that’s for both the equipment and the installation. The applicable standards are on their website and you need to ask your suppliers probing questions about this.
GA: Absolutely. Do your due diligence before you make that investment. Get your supplier to show you how everything can be achieved – for your monitoring platform, you want to see what an operator sees, you need a proper demo not just the sales pitch.
IH: I think open and honest conversations will be important in order to implement digital plans with pace and at scale.
What about those organisations who have already upgraded? What should they be focusing on next?
GA: Deep dive into the enhanced functionality of your digital call handling platform, can it improve call handling, reporting, service management, home working, improving your overall customer experience. How can your digital platform support the digital roll out of equipment is it agnostic to devices can it give you an opportunity to be agile enough to support customers changing care needs does it allow housing customers to manage their data? How can we ensure that we are using functionality such as automation, AI, chatbot effectively to deliver a robust and safe service. There have also been changes to the Quality Standards Framework particularly around end-to-end resilience make sure you’ve read about the changes and the requirement for evidence for your audits.
MS: First check on any outlier user cases to make sure they have been covered, such as anyone who has been in hospital. Then you need to understand what the technology you’ve invested in can do for you and your users. How can this help you in the here and now?
What are some of the opportunities as we look to 2024 and beyond?
IH: There’s an opportunity to seize this moment to transform telecare services but housing providers and suppliers are going to need to work as partners to do everything possible to ensure customers have safe telecare solutions in place.
GA: Proactive and preventative services will become more important as we need to reduce the impact into the emergency services. We need more coproduction of wrap round services with primary care and voluntary services to support an ageing population. Housing, health and tech have an opportunity to drive change and deliver a more joined up approach to supporting our joint users, patients, customers, to ensure a person centred outcome.
MS: Proactive services are going to become much more important and we are looking at ways to improve social inclusion. This is a significant aspect of preventative care but can be overlooked – it can affect both mental and physical health. We’re about to release a friends and family app which will show if a person has been up and moving and prompt family members to check in with them. This can make a big difference to people, just knowing that someone is looking out for them.
GA: There’s also a need to keep ahead of new developments, such as AI and where that might sit within the telecare arena. I’m not suggesting this would be used for immediate care needs but does it have a role in creating more robust and cost-effective services?
What does the next 12 months look like for Appello?
GA: Continuing to be part of the continuous change in the telecare industry and driving that change from the frontline. We’ve been ahead of the curve. When we installed our digitally connected platform in 2012. That means we can look at what else we can do to get the best use out of the call handling technology. Delivering insightful data to our partners in housing, health and tech to drive change and support people to live safely and independently. Support our customers with the digital switch over through education, roadshows, events, and being part of special interest groups. Making sure that Appello is a partner of choice through its knowledge, products, services support and relationship management.
IH: There’s also still a lot to do with the digital phone switchover, so it’s going to be about building on our work this year to support our customers to put safe telecare solutions in place. We’ve seen great interest at roadshow events and exhibitions around the country. And we’ve ended 2023 with some fantastic results at the UK Contact Centre Forum Awards – we won Best Use of Technology, one team member was awarded Best Manager of the Year and we were highly commended for our Home Worker Strategy. These awards cover every industry from healthcare to logistics and IT, so it means a lot to be recognised for our technology and processes. It’s a great endorsement as we head into what I think will be a significant year for the industry.
MS: I’m looking forward to evolving our products set. We’re in a strong position as all our products have been designed to be digital from scratch, so we’ve got the right foundations in place to adapt and grow in line with our customers’ needs.
GA: Yes, we need to keep on finding areas where we can improve, which is something Appello is extremely good at. The aim is to provide best in class services that ensure the customer is at the heart of what we do and that focuses on continuous service improvement.
About Appello
Appello is a market leader in digital telecare and Technology Enabled Care (TEC). We work with housing providers to deliver safer and happier communities, using technology to help empower and enrich people’s lives. We’ve been creating and delivering digital telecare for a long time now, so you can feel confident that we have all the essentials covered while also providing innovative and comprehensive solutions. Contact us to find out how we can help you.
