Telecare Savings Estimated at £2.9m in Scotland
Published 28th May 2008
Alarm based services have been a mainstream form of care service provision in Scotland for many years, and in 2006 over 137,000 people benefited from a community alarm service. Since 2006, the Scottish Government has promoted telecare service provision through a Telecare Development Programme (TDP) fund of £8.35m.
Using this funding, local care partnerships have begun to develop, extend, and mainstream telecare solutions to care needs according to local needs profiles and priorities. By September 2007, Telecare Development Programme funding was responsible for a minimum of:
- Around 1,300 additional people able to maintain themselves at home with support
- 66 delayed hospital discharges and 140 emergency hospital admissions avoided, with 1,800 hospital bed days saved
- 74 care home admissions avoided, and 6,900 care home bed days saved
- 1,250 nights of sleepover care and 107,000 home check visits saved
In terms of efficiencies, based on information from 13 partnerships (out of 32) for the first six months of 2007/8, the York Health Economics Consortium has provisionally estimated verifiable savings of approximately £2.9m.
Over the period 2007-2010, core efficiency saving from the Telecare Devlopment Programme 2007/8 – 2009/2010 are expecting a minimum of:
- 46,500 hospital bed days saved by facilitating speedier hospital discharge
- 225,000 care home bed days saved by delaying the requirement for people to enter care homes
- 46,000 nights of sleepover care and 905,000 home check visits saved by substitution of remote monitoring arrangements
Collectively, these savings are valued at around £43 million.
Also mentioned in the report is The Koala Project in The Netherlands who are using the BetaVista Videocare telehealth system to give 1000 older people and others with long term health issues remote access to healthcare workers. for more information on this system, please click here
For more information on the report “Telecare In Scotland: Benchmarking the Present, Embracing the Future” from the Joint Improvement Team please click here
Back