Communicare247

Communicare247 is delighted to announce that we have been shortlisted for the Industry Collaboration Award at this year’s Holyrood Connect’s Digital Health and Care Awards 2021.

The awards ceremony will bring together health and care organisations, collaborators andstakeholders, to celebrate success and highlight the best examples of digital innovation within Scotland’s health and social care sector. 

Communicare247 has been shortlisted for the Industry Collaboration Award, which highlights the innovative partnerships between the public and private sector and celebrates successful digital transformation projects which work to deliver positive outcomes for citizens. 

With ongoing collaboration with Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership as part of the Can Do Project, where Communicare247 won funding of over £130k, and other partners across health and social care, Communicare247 has been recognised for our work for developing Project Liberty. 

Project Liberty is a pioneering assisted living telecare system that incorporates consumer devices such as voice activated speakers, smart phones and other smart wearables, sensors and location technologies within a digital monitoring and response platform. Project Liberty has been developed as an ideal solution to allow some of the most vulnerable people across the UK to live independently at home, whilst providing a robust, cost-effective and insightful telecare solution for care providers that can help assess and predict the care needs of citizens. 

Speaking of the announcement, Chief Executive Tom Morton, said: 

“I am absolutely delighted that Communicare247 is being recognised for its ongoing collaboration with service end-users and key partners across the industry.

“Project Liberty has made it clear that partnerships and ongoing collaboration with stakeholders is vital to achieve industry growth, for wider scale transformation, and to encourage innovation in health and social care services, especially in a time where connected systems, remote monitoring, and access to data is more important than ever.”

This year’s Digital Health and Care Awards will take place virtually on February 26th and will celebrate achievements over six award categories. Full details of the awards can be found here. 

About Communicare247

Communicare247 is a health and social care service provider which delivers connected care solutions. Using secure digital technology and monitoring services, we enable citizens to remain safe and independent in their own homes for longer. Cloud services and effective technology provide valuable reassurance for individuals receiving care and permits sharing of information with families and care providers. The service helps to support service commissioners in balancing their duty of care with practical efficiencies capable of meeting modern day audit and resource challenges.

Assistive care technology specialist Communicare247 is on track to deliver a first-of-its-kind digital home care system in Glasgow. 

Communicare247 has won funding worth over £130,000 to support the next phase of development of Project Liberty, a new system which will enable the UK’s most vulnerable people to live independently in their own homes and communities for longer.

The pioneering digital telecare system incorporates consumer devices such as voice-activated speakers, smart phones and other smart wearables, sensors and location technologies through a novel monitoring system that can integrate with existing telecare home care alarms. 

The project will connect with Scotland’s world-leading long range wide area network (LoRaWAN), which enables devices to collect and send data without the need for 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi. The IoT Scotland wireless sensor network is designed to support full use of internet of things (IoT) devices, including sensor applications deployed in Communicare247’s Liberty home care system.

The Liberty project is expected to be complete in the third quarter of 2021 and will provide a scalable digital telecare system that could be deployed by local authorities, housing associations and care providers across the UK.

The support for Project Liberty comes via the £9.2million Can Do Innovation Challenge Fund which announced funding for a number of public sector-led innovation schemes in Scotland. Project Liberty is part of Glasgow City Council’s “Technology enabled Glasgow” challenge, uniting project leader Communicare247 with partners and stakeholders including the Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership and the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the Alliance).

The funding will be used to support the second phase of development which will deploy and test the system with citizens living independently with a variety of complex care needs, including Alzheimer’s disease. The first phase commenced in January 2019.

Tom Morton, Chief Executive of Communicare247, said: “Project Liberty will design and deliver the ideal solution to allow some of the most vulnerable people in Scotland to live independently within their own home with reduced reliance on publicly-funded care interventions. 

“A telecare system that uses Alexa and smart watches is a game changer. We are integrating common and easy to use consumer products along with IoT sensors and innovative telehealth monitoring in an existing data-led system that reports to carers, family members and emergency services as required.

“Currently, across the UK, there is an estimated 4milllion elderly and shielding people who rely on analogue telecare systems to help keep them safe. Most of these systems are at risk of becoming obsolete due to the telephone network switch from analogue to digital. This gives the UK an unprecedented opportunity to adopt a leading digital-enabled assisted living care which will be delivered through Project Liberty.

“Together the partners behind Project Liberty are leading the way in developing integrated solutions to worldwide challenges in ageing populations and I’d like to thank them for their support and vision.”

Michael Gillespie, Principal Officer, Glasgow HSCP said: “Communicare247 were selected by Glasgow HSCP/ City Council from a competitive field of over 40 SMEs in Phase 1 of the Scottish Enterprise-sponsored Can Do challenge. Their proposed integrated digital solutions will help us meet the challenge of transitioning telecare services from analogue to digital. This carries the potential to empower users to self-manage and maintain independence at home using familiar technologies.

“To date our private/public sector partnership work with them has been productive. Subsequently we have selected Communicare247 to develop further their product in Phase 2 of the Challenge as their innovative solution is highly valued. 

“The supply of telecare is a relatively narrow marketplace characterised by relatively one-dimensional options. Communicare247’s forward thinking approach provides the potential for using a wider range of peripherals within a stable and effective platform which we hope will facilitate delivery of more user-friendly technology-enabled care services.”

Click here to find out more about Project Liberty. 

About Communicare247

Communicare247 is a health and social care service provider which delivers connected care solutions. Using secure digital technology and monitoring services, we enable citizens to remain safe and independent in their own homes for longer. Cloud services and effective technology provide valuable reassurance for individuals receiving care and permits sharing of information with families and care providers. The service helps to support service commissioners in balancing their duty of care with practical efficiencies capable of meeting modern day audit and resource challenges.

Tom Morton, Chief Executive of assisted living technology specialist Communicare247, welcomed the publication of the National Briefing Document by Digital Telecare for Scottish Local Government highlighting the urgent need to upgrade telecare systems supporting over 180,000 elderly and vulnerable citizens in Scotland.

He said: “This report is a game changer. It nails on the head the issues facing telecare providers such as local authorities and housing associations and their vulnerable clients.

“We became aware that the telecare systems used across Scotland risked becoming obsolete as soon as the decision was taken to switch the national telephony network from analogue to digital in 2016. This process has now been speeded up and will be complete by 2023. The warning is stark that without intervention, call failures will continue to rise because analogue equipment can’t operate safely or reliably over digital telephone lines.

“Now is certainly the time for the publication of this document, which provides an essential routemap towards ensuring telecare is both safe and robust for the increasing number of people who rely on it.

“The report highlights that there will be a need for investment, but it also confirms that care providers now have an unprecedented opportunity to deploy a transformational transition to digitally-enabled assisted living. This includes a range of voice and sensor-enabled devices that could never be used in analogue systems. Other benefits include quality and reliability, more choices and improved experience for citizens with services tailored to their needs, the power of data-driven services and overall resilience for both the user, care providers and alarm receiving centres (ARCs). 

“Scotland is a leader in developing integrated solutions to worldwide challenges in ageing populations. The future of social care is reliant on telecare systems that offer both reduced costs but also improved outcomes and applications that mean people can live independently for longer in their own homes.

Click here to read the National Briefing Document: Transitioning from analogue to digital. 

About Communicare247

Communicare247 is a health and social care service provider which delivers connected care solutions. Using secure digital technology and monitoring services, we enable citizens to remain safe and independent in their own homes for longer. Cloud services and effective technology provide valuable reassurance for individuals receiving care and permits sharing of information with families and care providers. The service helps to support service commissioners in balancing their duty of care with practical efficiencies capable of meeting modern day audit and resource challenges.

The model for delivering supported living is undergoing revolutionary change. New assistive technology is set to fundamentally transform how we live with age, disability and infirmity. The need for this support has been further accelerated under restrictions imposed in the Covid19 pandemic. Care providers in the UK also face a race against time as existing telecare services risk being made obsolete by the digitalisation of the telephone network. 

To meet these challenges, Communicare247 has developed Liberty, an advanced care-at-home system that integrates digital assistive technology, telecare and Internet of Things (IoT) products including voice-enabled smart speakers. Currently in the final development stages with local authority and technology partners, Liberty is the vanguard of remote smart technology solutions that improve the physical and mental wellbeing of people with assisted living needs and helps keep them connected to carers and their community. 

Tom Morton, CEO of Communicare247, said:

“The COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing measures have quickly and significantly changed how carers can interact with people who need at-home assistance. The pandemic also exposed significant weakness in the current monitoring centres ability to support remote working, and people who were required to shield effectively doubled the existing service demand capacity pushing the provision of home care service and remote monitoring systems to its limits.

“Scotland is a leader in developing integrated solutions to worldwide challenges in ageing populations. Health and social care service providers are acutely aware of the need to adopt more flexible digital services in order to better manage our citizens’ health and wellbeing needs.”

Currently, across the UK, there is an estimated 4m+ elderly and shielding people who rely on analogue telecare systems to help keep them safe. This means care providers now have an unprecedented opportunity to adopt leading digital-enabled assisted living care.

Tom added: “The planned analogue to digital switchover, now brought forward to 2023, is creating significant pressures for care service providers who have even less time to effect the changes required to prevent rising analogue call failures.

“Communicare247, delivering a pedigree in providing digital systems to over 20,000 individuals since 1998, is at the forefront of this changing digital landscape and it is ready to help the industry today. We are proud to launch an exciting range of digital health and wellbeing services using innovative IoT and mobile technologies.

“This is not just about new gadgets or better buttons. Communicare247 solutions place better outcomes as the first design principle. Independence and empowerment lie at the heart of every solution we offer while also meeting the challenging productivity and efficiency needs of service commissioners and providers.”

Care providers such as local authorities, social care commissioners and private sector partners are invited to register their interest in Liberty which will be launched to commercial users Q1 2021.

Care users can also now choose from Communicare247’s Heritage Range, which offers digital versions of the familiar telecare alarm units designed to support independence at home. In addition, the Freedom Range uses innovative mobile phone and GPS systems that support reablement, social inclusion and freedom to roam in the wider community safely. 

All three ranges are supported by Archangel, Communicare247’s open API, cloud-based connected care platform. This connects any IoT or mobile device, providing holistic data views to carers and healthcare professionals. The data enables accurate assessment and can help to predict future care needs, which is key to people being able to remain independent and safe at home for longer.

About Communicare247

Communicare247 is a health and social care service provider which delivers connected care solutions. Using secure digital technology and monitoring services, we enable citizens to remain safe and independent in their own homes for longer. Cloud services and effective technology provide valuable reassurance for individuals receiving care and permits sharing of information with families and care providers. The service helps to support service commissioners in balancing their duty of care with practical efficiencies capable of meeting modern day audit and resource challenges.