Three property developments in Northamptonshire to benefit from digital care solutions
Spire Homes, a not-for-profit provider of affordable housing, independent living and sheltered housing for older people, has made a significant investment in digital Smart Living Solutions from Appello, a leading provider of technology enabled care services. The new digital systems, designed, installed and maintained by Appello, will enable residents to benefit from a faster connection to their emergency Careline service – reduced from up to 1 minute 30 seconds to just under three seconds.
The modern digital solution, which replaces an ageing analogue system, will also deliver enhanced quality of two-way speech, and the capacity to connect multiple fire, door access and emergency calls from the housing development simultaneously.
Spire Homes is part of Longhurst Group, a leading housing provider across the Midlands and East of England. It has committed to Appello’s IP-based Care system across three property developments – with the residents of Harpers Court in Kettering already benefitting from the new system.
Mark Short, Regional Property Manager for Spire Homes, says, “At Spire Homes we pride ourselves on putting our residents at the heart of everything that we do. A huge part of that is making sure that our residents are happy, safe, secure and in well-maintained homes – and hopefully living as independently as possible.”
He adds: “Up until this point we have provided analogue care systems in order to deliver remotely managed care to our residents. However, when we saw the possibilities of a fully digital solution, we knew that we needed to make a commitment to only install digital solutions in our properties. With digital, the connection time to a two-way conversation is almost instantaneous, giving significant safety and experience benefits to residents.
Going forward, we will be investing year-on-year in digital to future-proof our developments, with Appello as our partner.”
Tim Barclay, CEO at Appello, comments, “Spire Homes has to be commended for the investment it is making in digital care. There is a growing appreciation in the housing sector that telecoms providers will be switching off analogue services by 2025, and existing analogue services are becoming increasingly unreliable. We are seeing forward-thinking housing providers, like Spire Homes, acting now to deliver modern care services to residents – enabling them to feel safer, more secure and better supported than with traditional services within their own homes. With Spire Homes leading the charge, housing providers no longer need to be constricted by the limitations of analogue care – a better future of independent living for everyone is much closer.”