Agenda item

Presented by John Green.

The Board received the report on Assisted Technologies presented by John Green and were asked to note the following:

              Since 2011, significant work had been undertaken that has resulted in greater use of AT by adult social care clients, underpinned by improved operational efficiency in assessing, referring, providing, installing and monitoring equipment. The provision of Fair Access to Care Services (FACS) eligible AT now stood at nearly 1,500 individuals, predominantly pendants, with a further 2,500 or more FACS eligible clients under consideration to have AT as part of their care package.

To identify the benefits delivered by AT, two cohorts had been monitored over an extended period of time to provide an analysis of a number of key measures. The monitoring is to continue on a quarterly basis to further improve the robustness of the analysis reported. The cohorts are:

·           Cohort A - ASC clients who receive AT and homecare (70 at outset)

·           Cohort B - ASC clients who only receive homecare (407 at outset)

The three key benefits measures are:

·                    Benefits Measure 1: General impact on hospital admissions as indicated in ASC systems

·                    Benefits Measure 2: Reductions in admissions due to falls from health data

·                     Benefits Measure 3: Impact on admission to residential/nursing care from ASC data

Benefits measure 1

Cohort A, (AT and homecare) is less likely to be admitted to hospital than cohort B (homecare only) after a period of 18 months by a margin of 25.02%. This indicates that the application of AT will have a beneficial impact on reducing hospital admissions. To validate this there should be an actual impact on hospital admissions.

Benefits measure 2

Having used ASC data to evidence the apparent decline in hospital admissions health data relating to admissions due to falls has been analysed. This indicates that there is a correlation between the increased number of pendants in the community and a reduction in hospital admissions due to falls of 44% in 2013 compared to 2011 – which would

convert to an estimated annual saving of £2.24M3 – or if attributing 50% of this to AT then £ 1.12M.

Benefits measure 3

Cohort A (AT and homecare) are less likely to be admitted into residential or nursing care by a margin of 5.9% than cohort B (homecare only).  Cohort A also demonstrates that of those who are admitted there is significant delay in the elapsed time from when they start to receive services until admitted of at least 3 months but this is likely to be significantly longer. A delay of 3 months in the start of a typical residential care package costing £25,000 indicates a gross benefit of £6,250. However, the average cost of domiciliary care prior to admittance to residential care is £12,500 or £3,125 per quarter. The net saving is therefore £3,125 per person (£6,250 less £3,125). If these numbers are factored up, with approximate numbers entering residential care of 300 per year, the projected minimum annual saving would be £937,500.

In January 2013 a survey was conducted for recipients of AT and their carers. The survey asked a series of questions focused on general feelings of wellbeing and safety, levels of help and support and incidents of admission to hospital.  Generally the responses were extremely positive from both carers and users. Other observations included:

·                     In regard to questions around feelings of well-being, 80% - 90% of users and carers agreed that people generally ‘feel better’ with the AT in place

·                     Between 50% and 60% of respondents agreed that AT prevents escalation to hospital or residential care

·                     There is a general similarity of response between users and carers

·                     In light of the more tangible benefits, the survey included indicating the sense of well-being imparted by the AT and the support service behind it. It provides some explanation, by explicit answers and by the implied ‘feel good’, why some of the benefits identified are being delivered.

The Health and Wellbeing Board noted and supported the benefits of AT and that Havering Adult Social Care and Havering CCG were working together in partnership to increase the use of AT and maximise benefit realisation.  AT is currently funded through S256 funding and this is to be continued throughout 2013/14 and is committed for part of 2014/15.