Gavin Bashar image

Gavin Bashar, Managing Director at Tunstall UK&I, offers his thoughts on how technology-enabled care services (TECS) can support the UK’s health, housing, and social care professionals and users.


As a nation, we are living longer and are more informed to make healthier and better choices. However, having the right information is only the beginning. As our ageing population continues to grow, it is becoming more challenging for health, housing, and social care providers to meet demand and deliver collaborative care, so that citizens accessing health and care services experience them as seamlessly as possible.

Now more than ever, digital solutions and technologically advanced care are offering the chance for the workforce to streamline caseloads, drive collaborative working practices, and deliver more effective care. This, in turn, will contribute to being better equipped to focus resources where they are most needed and empowering patients to safely manage their own conditions.

How can technology-enabled care services (TECS) can support the UK’s health, housing, and social care professionals and users?

The future of the hospital ward

On average, at any given time, five percent of NHS England hospital beds are occupied by patients awaiting discharge, and the majority of these beds are in acute care. With the acute sector under increasing pressure and more people recognising the value of community care services, virtual wards are becoming more frequent.

It’s hoped that we’ll see integrated care systems (ICSs) and professionals within the health and care landscape become increasingly interested in and understanding of the benefits of these revolutionary solutions and place them at the centre of care delivery.

Virtual wards can not only support a reduced and more streamlined case load for acute services and more collaboration with community care. They can also enable us to build a world where patients can receive care at home and in their community, which is important to a majority of the population. A recent study coordinated by the NIHR and researchers from the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford found that caring for vulnerable, older people at home can improve patient outcomes.

Remote patient monitoring is here to stay

In recent years, there’s been a growing trend in care providers utilising RPM (remote patient monitoring). This supports early intervention which can avoid the need for more complex care for people living with chronic conditions.

RPM solutions can be tailored to the needs of every user by harnessing the power of technology to design services around individual needs, rather than location. This can support patients in taking an active role in managing their own health.

While many systems look at individual conditions, RPM platforms can be personalised to monitor underlying health issues with complex comorbidities, in turn allowing dedicated programmes to be developed and deployed quickly. RPM can be scaled and adapted responsively according to clinical need, seasonal and environmental risks, and technological innovation. Technologies like this can support service providers in offering more dignified and independent care to people in their own homes and keeping them out of hospitals.

ICSs and their impact on service provision

Most recently, ICSs and integrated care boards (ICBs) have been introduced in a proactive initiative to create seamless care delivery and ensure a smooth patient pathway from initial consultation to discharge and rehabilitation. Technology plays a huge role in ensuring the fruitful implementation of ICSs, as a key consideration has been streamlining care delivery and consistency in data collection and records.

As ICBs establish themselves, we will begin to see citizens and service providers become more engaged across the board when it comes to driving greater adoption of technology and digitalisation across the health and care landscape. This in turn will create a more connected and intelligent world that enables a collaborative approach to the delivery of efficient, proactive, and integrated health and social care services.

By engaging closely with citizens and their communities with the help of ICSs, we can give them a world where they have the freedom to live life to the full in a place of their choice, with the people and things that they love, doing the things that matter most, through care and support that is inclusive, accessible, and innovative.

A tech-based future

We are at a pivotal time that will shape our services and the use and deployment of technology for decades to come. The ability to transition to a system that can provide universal access to new technologies that manage, analyse, and harvest actionable intelligence will be crucial to the success of service provision in the future.

Using technology to support people is relatively low cost, meaning citizens can stay at home for longer with an increased quality of life. Digital solutions can also empower staff to work more efficiently, reduce bureaucracy, and enable them to spot changes in people’s behaviour.

Integration and investment in technology will enable us to reconfigure and integrate our services. It’s essential that service providers and service users are involved in the digital transformation if we’re to innovate, embrace technology successfully, and deliver new approaches which create benefits for citizens. We hope to see more cohesion and improved data gathering from technology providers and data companies as we move into 2023 to support clinicians and other frontline workers in their goals of improving the health outcomes of our population.

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