Staying Safe, Staying Home - Telecare services in Buckinghamshire
Download (PDF 206.96 KB)Summary of report content
In November 2017 until January 2018, Healthwatch Bucks conducted a survey to explore peoples' experience of the telecare service provided by Buckinghamshire County Council.
Healthwatch Bucks asked for people’s views on various aspects of the service and how telecare had helped them through a survey designed with advice from the Buckinghamshire County Council telecare team and Carers Bucks.
The response to the survey was good, as was the overall reported experience of the service. One less positive response was around peoples' understanding of how to use the equipment, how to check it is working and what to do if it goes wrong. This was not the case for almost half of service users or their relatives
The report makes recommendations to Buckinghamshire County Council to: put auditable processes in place to verify that all new and existing service users and/or their relatives know how to use their equipment, how to check their equipment is working, who to contact if it goes wrong and, how to request changes to their telecare package; check that information explaining how the equipment works and what to do if it goes wrong is available in formats that are accessible to all and have a process in place to confirm that users get this information in the best format for them.
In addition to these recommendations, Healthwatch Bucks also encourage Buckinghamshire County Council to seek feedback from people on the new assessment arrangements (now being delivered by NRS on behalf of the Council) to ensure that the positive experience is maintained.
At the time of publishing, Healthwatch Bucks had shared their findings with Buckinghamshire County Council, the Health and Wellbeing
Board and the Assistive Technology Partnership Board and asked for a response to their recommendations, however the report was published before this was received.