Posted on

Care Technologist Phase 3 Pilot

Scottish Care are trialling a new Care Technologist role in care at home and care home settings in a 12 month, TEC funded Test of Change.

Following a successful 6-month trial with SRS Specialist Resource Solutions in Aberdeen, the Care Technologist project is extending to 2 further geographical areas – East Ayrshire and Glasgow, and the scope now includes Care Homes and Daycare services.

This Homecare Day 2022, we will be hosting a digital drop-in session for anyone interested to know more about the project and meet the Care Technologists, Katherine Long, Dan Plant and Cheryl Stevenson. This will take place online, 2pm – 3pm on Thursday 22nd September.

‘Join our first Digital Drop-in session here’

We are currently working with Baillieston Community Care, HRM Homecare, SRS Specialist Resource Solutions and care homes represented by Scottish Care to trial the role.

David Reilly, CEO of Baillieston Community Care said: 

“We are absolutely delighted to be taking part in the Care Technologist Project with Scottish Care, and having a Care Technologist working within our organisation. We see technology playing such an important role in the future of Social Care, supporting our workforce and ensuring the best possible outcomes for the people we support. We look forward to the year ahead and seeing the impact that this project will have on the people we support, their families and our staff.”

Lynn Laughland, Managing Director of HRM Homecare Services said:

“At HRM Homecare Services, we are enthusiastic about bringing the role of a Care Technologist into our business and being part of this project with Scottish Care. Digitalisation is important to the growth of the Care Sector, and the benefits of technology can help to support people who access care by ensuring their needs are nurtured through the implementation of appropriate technologies. We are excited and encouraged by the role of Care Technologist and believe this is the right step forward for the Scottish Social Care Sector.”

For more information about the role, our strategy and how we are helping people to live well, you can read more about the Care Technologist below.

https://scottishcare.org/the-care-technologist-project/

If you would like to stay up to date with the progress of the project, you can sign up to receive updates via email or drop-in to one of our online sessions which take place monthly. You can opt-in to either of these by getting in touch below.

Katherine (Care Technologist Lead and care home delivery): [email protected]

Posted on

Workshop invitation and survey – using algorithmic and AI tools in health and social care

The growing use of algorithms and AI tools to support delivery of care – for example, risk assessment tools, monitoring tools, and tools to support capacity management –  has implications for learning and workforce development at all levels. Scotland’s Digital Health and Care Strategy sets out an objective to “equip our staff with the ability to understand and interrogate data-driven recommendations and decision support tools, including those powered by Artificial Intelligence.”

DHI Scotland and NHS Scotland are now offering two opportunities for you to contribute your perspective on these learning and workforce development needs. They would really appreciate hearing your views by:

  1. Completing this short (10-15 minutes) Questionnaire survey
  2. Joining the virtual workshop “Using AI and algorithms with confidence”  11.00 am – 1.00 pm on 23rd August.  This workshop brings together leaders in the field to share their expertise and insights. It is a great opportunity to learn from experts in the field and to contribute your perspective on developing the workforce to realise the full benefits of these tools. The workshop programme is available below and you can register here using this booking form.
Workshop invitation using AI and algorithms learning needs
Download
Posted on

Telecare Small Grant Opportunity – Stakeholder Engagement

Small grant opportunity for Third and Independent Sector Organisations to carry out stakeholder engagement

The Telecare Team at Scottish Government’s Technology Enabled Care Programme are seeking the views of citizens who either use Telecare at the moment, or who might use it in the future.

They are inviting Third and Independent Sector Organisations to carry out some targeted stakeholder engagement in order to better understand the requirements of our community. The outcomes will be shared with telecare providers nationally to inform the development of services.

There are 20 grants of £1,500 available. The deadline for the applications is close of play on Friday 10 June 2022. Successful applicants will be notified by Friday 24 June 2022.

You can fill in this online form: https://forms.office.com/r/N3skyGvn10

If you need the form in a different format you should contact Gillian Fyfe at [email protected]

Please see the briefing document below for more information.

Small Grant Opportunity for Third and Independent Sector Organisations - Funding Brief
Download briefing paper
Posted on

Digital Learning in Scottish Health and Social Care – Survey

The Digitally Enabled Workforce team within NHS Education for Scotland (NES) are working to support the development of digital skills and confidence across Scotland’s health and social care workforce.  They want to make it easier to find and use online learning materials that will help build digital skills and improve confidence with technology.  To help us do this effectively the team want to hear from people working in health and care tp understand what is really needed. To find out more information about this piece of work please click here.

This survey is for everyone working in health and care in Scotland, whether you are very confident with digital technology, or completely new to it.  The information you provide will help shape how we support the digital and technology learning needs of the health and care workforce, so it is important to gather as wide a range of views as possible.

Please help by completing the survey yourself, and by sharing this link throughout your organisation, networks.

The survey is completely anonymous and will take about 10 minutes to complete on any device.

Click here to complete the survey.

You can also find a downloadable version of the survey here.

To find out more about the survey, and the research work we are doing, visit this information web page: https://learn.nes.nhs.scot/61462

Posted on

Data Strategy Engagement Session – 23 June

Call for engagement on the Data Strategy for Health and Social Care

In March, Scottish Care members participated in early engagement with the Data Strategy Team.  You can a summary of their findings to date here: https://www.digihealthcare.scot/app/uploads/2022/05/Data-Strategy-HSC-Engagement-Summary-March-2022-pdf.pdf

A follow up engagement session has been scheduled for 23rd June 1-2pm and we would encourage as many members as possible to attend and help shape this important area of policy.

Please register interest with [email protected]

Or contact Nicola Cooper, Technology and Digital Innovation Lead for further information [email protected]

Posted on

Home Care Decisions App

Home Care Decisions App:  Your Opportunity to Lead the Way in Digital Innovation in Care Homes and Care at Home

Dear all

Scottish Care and the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI) invite you to become an early adopter of the new Home Care Decisions App.

What is the Home Care Decisions App?

This app is provided freely to all care home and care at home services in Scotland, as part of the national decision support programme funded by Scottish Government. It is available via the app stores by searching for “Home Care Decisions” and on the web at http://homecaredecisions.scot.nhs.uk

It delivers easy to use guidance and practical tools that improve safe, timely care and appropriate referral and escalation. The tools support care-workers in:

  • Delivering day to day care
  • Communicating in a shared language with the multi-professional team
  • Learning and personal development. 

The app offers two toolkits:

  • Care assessment and management– including Clinical Frailty Scale,  4AT tool for delirium screening, Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool, UTI assessment.
  • Palliative and end of life care

Care-workers strongly endorsed the app in the initial pilot, with 76-84% saying they were likely to use the toolkits in their day to day work.

What does being an early adopter involve?

Scottish Care, DHI, and colleagues in other early adopter sites will support you to embed this app in your service so that staff, service users and the wider healthcare team benefit from these evidence-based tools. We will help you to:

  • Put in place communication mechanisms to make sure all staff in your organization, including new recruits, know about the app and its benefits.
  • Define and implement processes and supporting technology to ensure that all staff who would benefit from the app have easy access to it in the work place.
  • Provide training, drawing upon national learning resources, to ensure that staff are confident in using the app.
  • Agree metrics and methods to evaluate impact of the app on practice and outcomes and take these measures over an agreed evaluation period.
  • Review evaluation results and agree improvements to the app and to the implementation process.

The learning you share as an early adopter will facilitate wider roll-out of the app in care homes and care at home services across Scotland.

To express interest in being an early adopter, please contact [email protected]

Home Care Decisions App flyer 19032022 v2
Download flyer
Posted on

Health and Care Leadership Programme – Cohort 18 Recruitment

NHS Education for Scotland (NES) are currently recruiting for Cohort 18 of the Digital Health and Care Leadership Programme (DLP). Deadline for applications is Friday 1st July 2022.

There are lots of opportunities to learn more about the programme

  • There will be a session with past participants who will be sharing their experiences of the programme on Thursday 26th May 13:30-14:30, .
  • Informal Q&A sessions for anyone wishing to find out more about the programme and ask any questions they may have. To book a place on a session, please register here.
  • Application guidance can be found on the Turas Programme Page.

NES are able to offer feedback on early applications before these are sent for review by the selection panel.

Applications are welcome from employees within NHS Scotland, social care, housing and the third sector who are leading a team, service or digital transformation within their organisation. Multidisciplinary team applications would also be welcome from those working collaboratively on the same project.

Any queries should be directed to [email protected].

Posted on

Launch of formal consultation on the Data Strategy for Health and Social Care

Please see below for a formal letter advising you of the launch of the formal consultation on the Data Strategy for Health and Social Care, which opened for submissions on Monday 16th May until the 12th August 2022. 

DB DHAC Data Strategy Consultation May 2022
Download letter

The Digital Health and Care directorate are keen to hear a diverse range of views and therefore we encourage you to submit comments on the consultation paper: https://consult.gov.scot/digital-health/data-strategy-for-health-and-social-care

The Digital Health and Care directorate have, and continue to, undertake a broad range of engagement with stakeholders and the public to support the development the Data Strategy. You can find a summary of their findings to date here: https://www.digihealthcare.scot/app/uploads/2022/05/Data-Strategy-HSC-Engagement-Summary-March-2022-pdf.pdf

If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact the Data Strategy team directly on [email protected]

Posted on

Digital Skills User Interviews – Have your Say

The Digitally Enabled Workforce team, within NHS Education for Scotland (NES), are working to support the development of digital skills and capabilities across the whole of Scotland’s health and social care workforce.  As part of this we want to make it easier to find and use online digital skills learning resources by centralising access to these on a single, easy to use, platform which will be available to everyone across health and social care.

To understand what people need and want from a platform like this, we are carrying out research interviews.  It is important that we hear from as many different roles across health and care as possible and would like to ask for your help with this.

Each interview will take approximately 50 minutes and can be conducted online or by telephone.  The interviews will include discussion about current digital skills, use of technology and learning experiences and take place between Monday 16 May and Friday 03 June.  They will be led by Hamish Linehan and Kate Penton-Voak who are employed by our partner agency – Capgemini – who commonly work with large organisations on user research like this.  Information given will be anonymised and used only for the purpose of this research project.

If you or a member of your team would like to take part in an interview, then please contact us by email at [email protected] and include:

  • Your name
  • Preferred method of interview (online/telephone)
  • Contact details (email/telephone number)

With interviews beginning next week we would greatly appreciate that names are submitted as soon as possible.

Thank you in advance.

Digitally Enabled Workforce Team

www.nes.scot.nhs.uk

Posted on

Shaping Digital Health & Social Care – Innovation Challenge

Businesses invited to share digital ideas for improved healthcare delivery in Scotland

  • New initiative using advanced connectivity to transform and improve healthcare delivery and solve current challenges in the service.
  • ‘Call’ for businesses to provide solutions to improve digital access to services, support care at home and share information safely.
  • Three shortlisted projects will receive access to a private 5G test bed and full technical and business support to develop a solution for market launch.

SMEs and technology entrepreneurs are invited to share their ideas to address challenges in the health sector, as The Scotland 5G Centre and its S5GConnect Dumfries hub launches their first innovation challenge today (date). The ‘Shaping Digital Health & Social Care’ Innovation Challenge will support three projects to improve healthcare delivery, by giving the selected companies the 5G know how to make their solution market ready.

S5GConnect is supported with this ground-breaking acceleration programme by two key challenge owners, namely Dumfries and Galloway Health and Social Care Partnership and Scottish Care. The Challenge Owners have identified the challenges they want to address. This ensures S5GConnect is assessing solutions that the market is keen to integrate.

The ‘Shaping Digital Health & Social Care’ Innovation Challenge invites businesses to respond to real problems and bring their solutions, enabled by 5G, to meet patient and care provider needs accurately, efficiently, conveniently, cost effectively and at scale.

Companies entering are required to highlight a solution that addresses one of the following challenges:

  • Enhance and develop digital access to health and care services across the region, particularly in rural areas.
  • Digital ideas to help support people to manage their own conditions and care for themselves safely at home.
  • Connectivity solutions that enable information to be shared with people and others involved in patients’ care safely and efficiently.

Spearheaded by S5GConnect, the Scotland 5G Centre’s series of 5G test beds and innovation hubs across Scotland, the challenge will provide access to a cutting-edge private 5G network in Dumfries, with expertise and advice to drive development within a 5G environment.

The winning companies will get access to the challenge owners’ expertise and insider knowledge throughout the accelerator programme, with support also committed post programme to bring the solution closer to market integration.

CGI, an additional challenge partner, will also be bringing its “go-to-market” and scaling expertise throughout the programme. CGI’s support will continue with network introductions and a potential showcase at the CGI Innovation Centre’s 5G lab in London. Technical support will be delivered by AWTG virtually and through direct one-to-one sessions at the testbed.

The ‘call’ is open to SMEs across Scotland and the UK who currently have a healthcare product or service in development or already on the market but requires additional digital capacity to meet a need or improve performance. Entrants also need to show they are committed to the programme and can ensure team members can attend the required sessions. There is a £1000 travel and subsistence budget available to each winning company to support these costs.

The S5GConnect innovation programme offers a comprehensive package of support for the successful companies. This includes: a 15-week development programme; access to the 5G testbed in Dumfries with one-to-one technical expertise to support technical development. In addition, companies will receive business and investment advice and introduction to potential customers and ongoing access to S5GConnect business and technical support until March 2023. The post challenge opportunities through the network of challenge owners and partners will add real value to a company.

Lara Moloney, Head of S5GConnect, said:

“Private 5G networks offer organisations a new way to deliver services, this innovation challenge focuses on how we can support independent living and care to ease the burden on the NHS and Care Providers. Collectively we are offering a real opportunity to businesses who can solve these difficult problems and that can be enhanced through advanced connectivity. This intensive programme will allow the acceleration of a business concept into a product that has the potential to transform how we care for people and change lives for the better.

“This is an ideal opportunity for businesses to access expert support to fine-tune their concept and assess it in a real environment. This will in turn lead to scaling up and commercialisation to create new skills and jobs and will make a positive and real difference to the economy.”

David Rowland, Director of Strategic Planning and Transformation, Dumfries and Galloway Health and Social Care Partnership, added  

“We launched a comprehensive Sustainability and Modernisation Programme to address the growing pressures on local services. We recognise that adopting new and emergent digital solutions is critical to our success as it can help us provide our services efficiently and effectively.

“This Innovation Challenge offers a fantastic opportunity for our partnership to forge the new alliances necessary to explore innovative and creative solutions to some of our key challenges.”

Nicola Cooper, Technology and Digital Innovation Lead, Scottish Care

“This is a terrific opportunity to do something of real value for people who access, or work in health and social care through delivering new solutions enabled by advanced connectivity at a time when we need it most.

“We want to work with innovators seeking real world applications for their solutions in health and social care. We will help match them with care providers, to shape and evaluate their ideas as part of the accelerator process.”

The programme will be delivered in person and remotely. The live test bed used will be at the S5GConnect innovation hub, at the Crichton Centre in Dumfries. Details of the innovation challenge, including a link to the Expression of Interest form and Q&A event are available at:

Shaping Digital Health & Social Care

Timetable for applications:

  • 12th April – Challenge Launch
  • 21st April – Live Q&A Application Support Event
  • 18th May – First Stage: Expression of Interest Documentation to be submitted
  • 1st – 3rd June – Second Stage: Technical Interviews with shortlisted Companies
  • 6th June – Winning companies will be notified
  • 27th June – Companies to start.