TEC Telecare works in partnership with the Local Government Digital Office and TEC in Housing, and engages with telecare service providers, citizens and other key stakeholders to provide leadership and support to drive continuous improvement, transformation and innovation in telecare deployment and service delivery.

What is telecare?

Telecare is a term which refers to:

…the provision of care services at a distance using a range of analogue, digital and mobile technologies. These range from simple personal alarms, devices and sensors in the home, through to more complex technologies such as those which monitor daily activity patterns, home care activity, enable ‘safer walking’ in the community for people with cognitive impairments/physical frailties, detect falls and epilepsy seizures, facilitate medication prompting, and provide enhanced environmental safety.

_{(Source: Scottish Government: A National Telehealth and Telecare Delivery Plan for Scotland to 2015)}

Telecare consists of equipment and services which can support people at home or in a community setting, including a care home or supported accommodation to get help or assistance. Telecare can include a call button which can be pressed. It can also include other types of equipment which provides early detection of risks like smoke, gas or temperature extremes.

Devices transfer an alert, alarm or data to call handlers in a 24/7 monitoring centre, or an individual responder, such as a carer or family member, so the right help can be provided.

In Scotland, around 20% of people aged over 75 are in receipt of a community alarm/telecare service. Services can be provided by HSCPs, housing providers or independent providers. Almost all HSCPs charge for the service.

The video below gives a brief explanation of what telecare is.

Please visit NHS Inform for further information on the telecare self-check online tool.

Latest Telecare Updates

Proactive Telecare Evaluation Report Published

Phase 2 of Proactive Telecare Outbound Calling Tests of Change is now complete and the evaluation which was run in parallel with the project has now been published.

The evaluation was commissioned and jointly funded by the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI) and the TEC Programme. The evaluation was carried out by the University of the West of Scotland.

The evaluation represents the reflective learning from planning and delivering Proactive Telecare Outbound Calling for 178 customers in Phase 1 and 109 in Phase 2, across three different test sites and working with five HSCP partners across central and southwest Scotland.

The evaluation focused on the three test sites:

Bield Housing and Care
Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP)
Dumfries and Galloway (D&G) HSCP

We also have a summary report to highlight the findings and recommendations coming from the report. See at a glance the impact that the test sites achieved over a short period of time.

Both the full evaluation report and the summary are available now on our website here

A Partnership Approach to Fire Safety Good Practice Guide

We're delighted to share with you a new resource for telecare service providers - A Partnership Approach to Fire Safety Good Practice Guide

The Technology Enabled Care Programme has collaborated with Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and a range of partners, to develop this good practice guide (GPG), with the aims of:

Growing and further developing a partnership approach between telecare service providers (TSPs) in Scotland and the SFRS, to enable people to live safely and well within their communities.
Improving the safety, experience and outcomes for people in receipt of telecare services in Scotland.

The guide sets out safe and effective practice, and supports a consistent and integrated approach to:

The referral, assessment, installation and maintenance of smoke and heat detection linked to an alarm receiving centre (ARC);
Person-centred fire risk assessment.
Call handling in response to heat, smoke and carbon monoxide (CO) detection; and
Additional fire safety advice and support for telecare.

This GPG is for health and social care partnerships, local authorities, housing providers and other organisations that provide care supported by technology. It takes into consideration changes in Scottish legislation relating to fire, smoke and CO alarms, which came into force on the 1st February 2022.

You can find the Good Practice Guide here:

A Partnership Approach to Fire Safety: Good Practice Guide | TEC Scotland

Assessment & Support Planning: Telecare eLearning Module

New eLearning module now available on NES's Turas Platform.

Developed by the National TEC Telecare Team in collaboration with NHS Education for Scotland (NES), this module has been created to increase the awareness, knowledge, and confidence of the health and social care workforce to better understand the role of telecare in assessment and support planning.

Learn more and access the module through the resource page ( click the image below).