Six housing providers awarded £440k to co-produce tech services with older residents

Bield Housing & Care, Haringey Council, Platform Housing Group, Pobl Group, Southend Care and Wiltshire Council will each receive between £65k - £75k in funding so they can involve their older residents in shaping new digital services.

The funding is part of the TAPPI project (Technology for our Ageing Population: Panel for Innovation) which aims to improve the way technology is used in housing and care for older people through ten practical principles.

Each housing organisation will engage a diverse range of older people to test different devices, apps and systems across a variety of housing settings. Residents will be given shared responsibility, alongside staff, to make decisions about which digital support services to develop.

Professor Roy Sandbach OBE, TAPPI Chair and form Director of The National Innovation Centre for Ageing at Newcastle Univeristy, commented: 

"The TAPPI principles will only be of value if they are applied in practice, and I'm thrilled that many housing and care organisations applied to become TAPPI testbeds. Those chosen will provide insights from a range of settings and, most importantly, will put users at the heart of this work. We'll use the TAPPI principles and a co-production approach to develop digital services that address real-life problems of older people. I’m very excited to work with our six new testbed sites."

For more information about each testbed, including a Q&As in which the demonstrator sites explain why they want to be a part of TAPPI and what impact they hope to have, visit the TAPPI2 microsite, currated by the Housing LIN.

Further updates can be found throughout the week on Twitter (opens new window) and LinkedIn (opens new window).