William Flint, Director of Bluebird Care NEW Devon, tells us how his team chose and tested Access Assure sensors and AI analytics to add value to personal care…
The government is keen for the health and social care sector to embrace the benefits of new technology. But how do you cut through the hype to find something that really works and offers good value for money?
William Flint, Director of Bluebird Care NEW Devon, recently conducted a successful trail of the Access Assure system, which uses discreet sensors in the home to monitor a person’s activity and learns to recognise anything out of the routine.
Last month, we reported how this ‘completely changed’ the relationship between staff member Sharon and her own elderly mother. ‘I didn’t expect technology to bring us closer but it has,’ Sharon told us. So how did William decide on the technology to trial? How was it funded? What else surprised his team?
Hello William. First of all, tell us a bit about your background.
I was originally an NHS and Social Care manager, which is how I came into home care. We’ve been running the Bluebird Care franchise here in Devon for 13 years. In that time, we’ve delivered more than 3m hours of care across the county. We do everything from once-a-week visits to help with shopping or bathing, right through to intensive live in care. We currently have a team of about 170.
When did you start thinking about technology-enabled care?
I think I first looked at it in detail in 2017, when some revolutionary kit was just coming in. We were used to basic technology to call for help: you’d wear a big, beige pendant round your neck with a button on it. But I remember seeing a wrist watch; it didn’t just work as an alarm, you could have a conversation on it with the person you called in an emergency. I think it could take readings such as heart rate, too. To be honest, my feeling then was that it might be a bit over-developed — and expensive. It wasn’t really in the range of our average customer.
What changed to convince you to invest in technology?
I kept up with what was available, at care events and shows. There has been a lot of focus on virtual care, especially in the last 18 months. But I also had a sense of what I wanted the technology to do for the people we work with. I had a check list: a call service that offered a wide rage of applications but with good reporting in the background, because you need data to make an assessment. Good data was key. We wanted to gather information to enable us to better tailor the care we give and provide reassurance. I was looking for technology for everyday use rather than for responding to an emergency. About six months ago, I found the right partner who could deliver the things on our list.
That was Access Health and Social Care.
We’re really pleased to be working with Access, who provide us with the kit — we install the sensors in customers homes to monitor their behaviour — as well as guidance on use-case scenarios so we deploy it in the best way. They’ve also worked with us on the business case: the pitch, if you like, for using this technology, which we put to our customers, local authorities, NHS trusts — everyone we work with.
So what’s the pitch?
This technology is not a replacement service for in-person care but adds value to what we’re already doing. It gives reassurance to family and provides insight to health and social care professionals. There’s also good evidence that it works. A number of organisations are working with Access on similar projects and we’ve established a bit of a network, so we can share understanding of what this technology can really do. That included our testing it in the homes of a few of our customers. We got some really interesting results very quickly.
We heard last month from Sharon, who is on your staff.
Yes, she’s in our management team. Sharon has a busy job with us but sadly her mum Monica is recently bereaved and had some health uncertainties that were impacting on her confidence. She lives alone, a couple of hours away. Sharon told us that she’d ring her mum several times a day, just to check Monica was all right.
It’s quite a common dynamic in a care scenario, which might take its toll on everyone involved. It can feel like a burden on the carer — ‘I must call Mum!’ And it can feel like a burden on Mum, who is always being checked on. Everything becomes, ‘Are you okay? Have you taken your medicine?’ You stop having normal conversations.
As Sharon found, very quickly this technology relieves that pressure on both sides. Sharon now knows her mum is up and about, that the kettle has been on. Depending on the needs of the person in care, the sensors can detect if the bathroom has been visited or the back door has been opened — so you know, ‘Oh, Dad’s been out to feed the birds.’ The individual gets on with their life, their loved ones can see they’re okay and so don’t need to worry. As Sharon said, that completely changed her relationship with her mum, for the better.
It surprised her. Did it surprise you?
It’s what we were told could happen but to actually see it was a surprise. We were also surprised by Monica’s response to the technology. When we started, I think she was a little suspicious. ‘Is it watching me all the time?’ But there was a real sense of regret that the pilot was coming to an end and we had to take away the kit. We ended up putting it back again!
How long did the pilot run?
You need at least eight weeks, I think, to get good data. The interesting thing is that you see immediate responses from the sensors, so you can make a human assessment of the information coming in and whether it is warning of something out of the ordinary. But after about 30 days, the system has built up enough data to recognise patterns itself. That’s when you start getting exception reports: ‘Mum woke a bit later than usual this morning,’ or, ‘Mum hasn’t had her usual cup of tea.’ You get meaningful insights from the AI.
Those benefits need to be weighed against the costs of a system like this. Was there funding available for your trial?
We looked at some pockets of funding. Local authorities also have budgets for the provision of care and so on, and are very interested in this area. But, as yet, we’ve focused on deploying this technology at a small scale to learn about the process, gather data and build up some case studies. In fact, to acquire this kit for a year or two has been remarkably inexpensive.
Starting out, I worried that the price of this kind of technology might be too close to that of care delivered in person. It really isn’t, which means this is not about technology taking over. Instead, we’re using technology to support that human delivery of care. It’s about getting the right blend.
Where we put in this technology, we ensure there are extra in-person visits. That means we can ensure the technology is working as it should but it’s also important for building the relationship with the person receiving care. Especially if they’re just beginning their care journey, people can be wary of a stranger coming into their home, or of conversations with someone who isn’t a family member about their care needs. The data we collect from the kit means that that process is less intrusive.
It also means we create an accurate picture of how the person really lives, which means we can tailor care to be more effective. I think that’s why there’s such interest from local authorities. We all know money is tight. A local authority won’t pay for this technology just because we say it’s a good idea. We have to provide good evidence. We’re looking at running a pilot here in Devon with some local authority clients, where the key thing will be how this technology helps us make an objective assessment of need.
Why is that an issue?
I can give you a really interesting example from when we were testing the technology. We spoke to the family members of a particular woman; they worried that she was no longer coping and might need to move into a care home. This was because, they told us, she was always tired and her house wasn’t very tidy. The initial assessment was that she needed some help getting up in the morning. But when carers arrived at eight they were rejected at the door. It was distressing — and, from a local authority point of view, it wasted limited time and resources.
We deployed four or five sensors in the woman’s home to see what was going on — and got the most amazing report. She was up and moving round the house all through the night. No wonder she was exhausted! Given the results, we tried having a carer stay there each night for a week, just to offer some reassurance. We found that the woman would get up, check the carer was there and then go back to bed. Over time, her movements in the night decreased until she slept through the night much better and no longer needed that support.
In understanding that pattern of behaviour, we could go back to the family and get more information. One question we asked was what the woman had done for a job. It turned out she’d been a bar manager, often working late — so it seems she’s always been a bit of a night owl. The data from the kits helped us reach that understanding so she now receives the right care. She’s not as tired, her home is in a better state and the family are reassured, all from using four or five tiny sensors. It’s fantastic.
What about risks involved in technology-enabled care? There have been some high-profile cyber attacks on the health sector in recent years, which have brought down whole systems.
Yes, that was on our check list. It’s one reason we felt comfortable partnering with Access, which is primarily a software company with very sophisticated data protection in place. Another important thing is that we’re not using this technology as an emergency monitoring system. If it goes down, all that happens is some data won’t be gathered on routine behaviour. The data we gather is encrypted but it’s also relatively depersonalised information, too. We’re not recording financial details, it’s not linked to key box numbers, our rostering system or anything like that. I think we’ve mitigated risks.
Is there anything on your check list that this system doesn’t do?
I know some things are coming that will be really useful, like having a video call or voice prompt option on the sensors. I’d like to be able to speak to customers — or send them a message — which we could integrate with our rosters. Things like, ‘It’s time to take your medication.’ That’s all headed towards full integration of our systems — but that is also expensive. The important thing is what we’ve got: technology that supplies good data to inform the decisions we make.
What advice would you give anyone else in the care sector looking to follow your example?
I really believe, from what we’ve seen in our trials, that there’s value in this technology. The issue is in espousing those benefits to other people, not least because care decisions are often made in response to crisis. Someone may come to us and say, ‘My Mum’s had a fall and I need to get her out of hospital and think about provision at home!’
We can’t then respond, ‘Well, um, maybe we could try an experiment with this new toy…’
To espouse the real benefits, everyone in the team needs to understand what this technology is, why it works and the things we can do with it. We’ve come to learn the importance of communication. Recently, we spent a couple of days taking turns to install the sensors and kit in our office so that everyone could see who arrives when, how often the kettle goes on, all our own patterns of behaviour. We then got reports back on ourselves. That made a huge difference to the conversations the team went on to have with customers. They could speak from experience.
That’s my advice: see for yourself that it works.
William Flint, thank you.
Photo of William, courtesy of Bluebird Care NEW Devon
In related news:
Prints charming: Art exhibition launches to showcase carers’ talents
Age is just a number, but must be considered among unpaid carers
Leave a Reply