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This paper explores the wider significance that the development of telecare services has for social care in addition to supporting people to remain independent at home. It considers the impact of this particular development as a model for change management and as a model for developing a social care workforce ‘fit for the future’. The paper takes a whole‐systems, integrated approach to service development and highlights important issues such as infrastructure, management, the capacity to innovate and workforce development. The paper emphasises that the development of new skills and new ways of thinking are even more important than the technology itself and that partnership is an essential ingredient for success. The context and content of this paper are informed and influenced by the experience of developing a new worker role, the assistive technology support worker, in Norfolk; and from the experience of designing and implementing a successful county‐wide technology‐based service.

This paper explores the wider significance that the development of telecare services has for social care in addition to supporting people to remain independent at home. It considers the impact of this particular development as a model for change management and as a model for developing a social care workforce ‘fit for the future’. The paper takes a whole‐systems, integrated approach to service development and highlights important issues such as infrastructure, management, the capacity to innovate and workforce development. The paper emphasises that the development of new skills and new ways of thinking are even more important than the technology itself and that partnership is an essential ingredient for success. The context and content of this paper are informed and influenced by the experience of developing a new worker role, the assistive technology support worker, in Norfolk; and from the experience of designing and implementing a successful county‐wide technology‐based service.

TATE [Through Assistive Technology to Employment] was a three‐year research project European funded through the second round of the Equal Communities Programme, which ended in December 2007. The project researched the use of existing and innovative technologies to remove or reduce barriers to accessing employment or independence for people with learning disabilities. The processes of the project and the involvement of the beneficiaries (adults with learning disabilities) in the research have been documented (Aspinall et al, 2007; Aspinall, 2007; Aspinall, 2008). This paper describes the outputs from the project.

Newham Council initiated a pilot project introducing advanced assistive technologies (telecare and telehealth) in 2004. Additional funding in 2006 provided the means to extend a service to over 4000 residents. In 2007, Newham successfully bid to become a Department of Health Whole System Demonstrator (WSD) site. This new project will be integrated with the existing service to target people at risk of hospital admission due to a defined group of long‐term conditions, and people with complex social care needs, with sophisticated technologies, interventions and support in their own homes. This paper describes the project methodology and the particular challenges that are faced. These include the development of a robust evaluation, which will provide statistical evidence of the effects of the technologies across the health and social care spectrum, as well as addressing and overcoming issues associated with information flow, change management and partnership working.

Although standard telecare services have quickly become very successful in many areas, their extension to other groups, including people with learning disabilities, has been delayed by issues such as ethics, and a need for a wider range of technologies. A series of pilot studies have demonstrated over £400,000 of savings in a year, and have enabled improved processes for assessment and prescription to be developed. Four case studies are described and their successful outcomes establish a way forward for Cheshire East Council Community Services to roll out improved provision to support many more service users in the future.

Telecare is a new form of assistive technology that has the potential to offer benefits to a wide range of stakeholders including the service user, informal carers and formal care services. It is a complex intervention, combining selected items of technology and telecommunications equipment in combination with conventional community services in order to support independent living. An overview of a robust evaluation framework is presented that will enable services to be compared from several viewpoints. It also offers a means of considering individual service elements and their integration into an effective service delivering cost benefits to the health and social care economies as well as improved quality of life to service users.

The use of telecare with appropriate domiciliary care packages may provide the means to manage many of the risks associated with the increasing number of older people who wish to continue to live independently in their own homes. Those who become especially frail or disabled can retain their independence and quality of life if their homes are made ‘smart’. This paper discusses the range of services that are available, or under development, for the prototype ‘MIDAS’ (Modular Intelligent Domiciliary Alarm System) telecare system, which enable traditional community alarm, telecare and assistive technologies to be used in an integrated and intelligent fashion. A range of services that allow autonomous operation within the home (and hence increase the perceived independence of a client by decreasing the reliance on a response centre operator) known as ‘HAMISH’ may be used. It offers a wider range of cost‐effective services of relevance to both the individual, and to society, in different types of home environment including dispersed housing and new sheltered housing schemes.

This paper argues that people with learning disabilities are an important potential consumer of ‘personalised technology’ and provides case studies demonstrating some of the ways that technology can help this client group. It also outlines the main barriers to personalised technology becoming a core element of social care planning for people with learning disabilities and concludes that more needs to be done to overcome these barriers and to research and demonstrate the potential benefits to this group.