TAPPI - An opportunity at exactly the right time?

“NHS and social care system in ‘most perilous position in memory'"
“Boy, 2, died after being exposed to mould in his home since birth”
“Elderly ‘cut back on care’ as cost-of-living crisis bites”
“Ageing population: Care workers say industry 'desperate' for help”

It is easy to look at recent headlines and feel like we’re confronted with the impossible.

But we’re not. I believe that when it comes to health, care and housing, the UK is facing challenges that require just three things: clarity of purpose, enrolment of solution-centric stakeholders (including those right in the middle of the crises) and a plan for delivery of short-term crisis management and a long-term strategy for healthy living and ageing.

Cards on the table. I believe that technology in all its forms can enable us to navigate our way, at least in part, to ‘living better for longer’. I also believe that TAPPI, with its focus on bringing tech to bear positively for the older and more vulnerable in society, can create the conversation and catalyse system-change that is needed.

I’m also convinced that we are miles adrift in terms of broadscale innovation delivery in housing (in whichever setting) and with respect to the creation of an accessible and understandable care-relevant technology market for people – whether they are individuals or families.

So, what has been achieved with TAPPI up to now? Well, some great stuff, but much more is needed.

So far, with the help of a committed, experienced and knowledgeable panel and with the contribution of experts from across the engaged housing, health and care sectors, we presented an initial TAPPI report in 2021, brimming with best-practice examples of tech that is making a difference in vulnerable and older people’s lives.

And we have created a set of TAPPI Principles that should be part of every conversation when tech and care are discussed, whether in the context of housing design, construction, care commissioning, care delivery. Pretty much anywhere!

Now, the second phase of TAPPI is taking these principles and testing them in practice. The Dunhill Medical Trust has funded six testbed settings in which the TAPPI Principles will be applied, tested, evaluated and reviewed, so that they can be crafted and changed to make them as useful as they can be. Essentially, we are building a practical framework for TAPPI action.

Our brand new TAPPI steering board which I chaired last week has an overview of this on-the-ground ‘doing’ work. There is real breadth of experience in this group, including someone who draws on care themselves and advises nationally on assistive tech policy; a social policy academic; leaders from health, housing, social care and the voluntary sector as well as senior executives from Microsoft and IKEA.

They will harvest golden insights from our testbed activity, providing strategic advice to the projects where needed.

But our steering board will also help us address what I think is our toughest, yet most important question: ‘How do we get all stakeholders to recognise the value in TAPPI?’

Once our six testbeds have applied and refined the TAPPI principles in their housing settings across Essex, London, the Midlands, Scotland, Wales and Wiltshire, we must consider how these learnings are truly embedded in the broader housing development and maintenance system.

Our TAPPI work must become the basis for everyday technology application conversations across the whole housing and care sector. This won’t be easy, and we will need to explore questions of incentivisation of innovation risk or even regulation. We may need to catalyse a major conversation on a national Independent Living Strategy.

One way or another, with technology efficiently applied into our housing and care world, the challenges of ‘living better, for longer’ will be addressed more effectively. Once again we can have a health and care system that everyone can be proud of. Surely, we can all be recruited to that challenge.

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Professor Roy Sandbach OBE chaired the TAPPI inquiry which concluded in November 2021 and is now chairing the second Phase of TAPPI.