can the web save social care for bsg

The International Longevity Centre-UK is an independent, non-partisan think-tank

dedicated to addressing issues of longevity, ageing and population change.

Can The Web Save Social Care?

David Sinclair, International Longevity Centre



Summary

We have more older people and are going to need more care

Care is in crisis today. It is likely to get worse

before it gets better

Technology has a role to play

But we have assumed the place of technology

without addressing the barriers

Some challenges to overcome



About ILC-UK

The ILC-UK was established in 2000 to explore and

address the new longevity revolution and its

impact on the life-course and society.

It provides the visionary approach needed for

individual and societal planning to ensure a

progressive, economically viable and socially

inclusive tomorrow for all.



Some of our publications



Numbers with late onset dementia likely to increase



More hours of care needed



And the cost of care will increase



More are living alone



We have current unmet need

• Funding for social care has not kept pace with

funding for health care. In the past decade, when

the NHS budget has doubled in real terms, social

care budgets have increased by only 50%. • This has led to local authorities effectively

‘rationing’ care services• When care needs go unmet, it is often the NHS

that steps in, at great cost, to deal with the

consequences.



And in the short run

• Plans for government-wide spending cuts create a

£1.75 billion black hole in funding for social care over

the next two years according to Age UK.• The planned cuts equate to around £900 from social

care, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, while

the London School of Economics has forecast that an

additional £800 million above the existing planned

expenditure is required simply to maintain provision at

its current levels over the same period, due to the rise

in numbers of frail older people.



Growing evidence of the cost effectiveness of prevention/early intervention and of technology

Popps evaluation found that for every £1 spent on

prevention projects, £1.20 was saved

Increasing evidence of the impact and value of

telecare (but social care only spending £80 million

on it at the moment)

But is technology really the solution?



The role for the internet

133 years ago– first two way

phone call made

In 2000 – ½ world had never

owned a phone

By 2007 ½ the world had a

mobile phone

It took 75 years for telephones

to reach 50 million users

It took 4 years for the internet to

reach 50 million



Google knows! Location Based Services



My Society/Fixmystreet.com



Tripadvisor for Care Homes



Ocado for care



Web to facilitate active ageing

Volunteering

Gradual Retirement (slithers of time)

Opportunities for fun

Opportunities to participate in society



Web facilitating access to Information and Advice

• More confident consumers of care with raising

expectations rather than patients• More tests available online/instant response

(telehealth/care/monitoring)• Greater access to information about conditions

(accuracy?)• Expectations to become more focused on “fix it”,

prevent it, cure it?• Growth in health tourism. What about care tourism?

(Travelodge/recuperation in Spain)



Challenge 1: Usability



Usability



Challenge 2: Motivating and inspiring the older population

“But how much smaller do we want a

phone?”

Some/many do want new technology but:

“I don’t want to live in a smart-home –

I’d rather be dead”



Challenge 3: Can’t continue to ignore the ethical issues

Moral and ethical debates – cant afford to ignore them

Must help older people choose technology when it is right for them (tagging/urine tests)

Privacy



Challenge 4: Technology wont tackle the fundamental problems

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

Bill Gates

(Let’s get the basics right first!)



Challenge 5: Digital Exclusion

Proportion of age cohorts ever having used the internet (Source: ONS)



Challenge 6: No culture of private purchase of health/care technologies

Personalisation?

Access to information and advice?

But Health Apps are biggest growth area for

Iphone.



Challenge 7: The older consumer?

“It is blindingly obvious that there is enormous difference between the seniors of yesteryear and people of the same age today.” Saga 2008

We have a wealthy cohort (on average) (and there are more of them)

Recent retirees “are more strongly defined by the impact of consumer society on their lives and expectations of post work life than previous generations”



A new phenomenon?

“They have fewer ties to family responsibilities... With their homes paid for their major housing concern is for property taxes and repairs... Being essentially free from obligation, they may spend their income and assets as they wish. Here is a potential market, therefore for those marketers who wish to appeal to it. It is a new market, almost unrecognised which must be developed with care as it depends upon the changing role of older persons in our society and the realisation that they are more free than their predecessors in the past century.”



A new phenomenon?

“They have fewer ties to family responsibilities... With their homes paid for their major housing concern is for property taxes and repairs... Being essentially free from obligation, they may spend their income and assets as they wish. Here is a potential market, therefore for those marketers who wish to appeal to it. It is a new market, almost unrecognised which must be developed with care as it depends upon the changing role of older persons in our society and the realisation that they are more free than their predecessors in the past century.”

Dodge, 1962



So..

• We have more older people and are going to need more care

• Care is in crisis today. It is likely to get worse before it gets better.

• Technology has a role to play

• But we have assumed the place of technology without addressing the barriers

• Challenges to overcome (research gaps remain)



Contact

David Sinclair

Head of Policy and Research

International Longevity Centre – UK

[email protected]

Twitter.com/ilcuk

Twitter.com/sinclairda