The TEC Action Alliance: a timely venture the industry needs
Launched in spring 2022, the TEC Action Alliance aims to maximise technologies and TEC services opportunities to support personalised, quality care through cross-sector collaboration and co-production. Realising these aims and their importance to the industry, the team at IoT Solutions Group leapt at the chance to be involved.
There is no denying that the Technology Enabled Care industry is changing. The Policy paper, People at the Heart of Care: adult social care reform, published by the Department for Health and Social Care in March 2022, comments,
“We want greater choice, control and independence to mean that someone who draws on care and support can say: I can live in my own home, with the necessary adaptations, technology, and personal support as designed by me, to enable me to be as independent as possible.”
Alyson Scurfield, CEO of the TEC Services Association (TSA) and Chair of the TEC Action Alliance, is cited as saying: “Giving people control of their own lives is the central purpose of this new Alliance. Technology has a major role to play in this, helping people to live in the place they call home, with the people they love, doing the things that matter to them.
There is also no avoiding the switch-off of the PSTN (public switched telephone network), due to be completed by the end of 2025. Ofcom has warned that potentially 500,000 vulnerable people could be affected by the switch-off.
A plethora of digital Technology Enabled Care solutions already exist, but it is clear that there is no one-size-fits-all solution; it simply wouldn’t be possible for health and social care. Therefore, we are excited that the TEC Action Alliance is working to “ensure that person-centred, technology enabled care is genuinely co-produced with service users”.
We have also found that the aims and values of the Alliance closely match us as a business. For example, you will regularly hear CEO Emma Mahy commenting that “we don’t shoehorn technology into organisations, instead we look for ways that technology can solve the challenges that organisations face, in an insightful, yet user-friendly, way.”
The choice of TEC options can also be overwhelming, so we are pleased to read that some important actions of the Alliance will be focused on developing language that expresses the breadth of technology and sharing learning from innovative practice across the UK and beyond.
The TEC market has a crucial role in the future of Health and Social Care. We are pleased to support the Alliance to maximise this opportunity for the benefit of vulnerable residents across the UK.
