Enabling a Person-Centred TEC Approach

A drive for person-centredness

Across health, housing and social care sectors there is a drive to ensure all services are identifying how person-centred outcomes are achieved for the individuals being supported.

During the second Phase of TAPPI (TAPPI2), one of the key outputs identified across all the ‘testbeds’ was the positive outcomes and feedback expressed by residents and users of services of the benefits they have seen from being involved in their services being co-produced.

The value of co-production was that it not only significantly helped get their ‘buy-in’ but ensured technology was embedded and considered an essential additional piece of the chain from the outset, and not regarded as a standalone part. The wider benefits and outcomes included:

• Empowering and equipping individuals to make informed choices that are person centred and demonstrating the benefits of technology.
• Highlighting digital inequalities and helping to prevent digital exclusion.
• Exploring and understanding the barriers to tech-enabled care and/or opportunities for mainstream technologies to support independence.

An enabling approach

From the activities across the 6 TAPPI testbed sites and wider stakeholders involved within this pioneering programme, a list of eight key enablers has been developed to help organisations to ensure their TEC (technology enabled care) approach is tailored towards creating and delivering person-centred outcomes.

If you are producing or reviewing your TEC strategy, the eight enablers below provide useful guidance on how you can incorporate the learning from the TAPPI project as part of your wider TEC strategy or review.  

Co-production  

Driving engagement across all levels and involving all individuals - from the individuals in receipt of TEC service, family members and staff - in the decision-making process of design, development and evaluation is how to achieve a true co-produced service offer. The benefits of co-production enable services to fully meet the needs and wishes of individuals and increases person-centred outcomes.  

Innovation 

Continuously explore new TEC options and engage with workshops, events and resources that builds knowledge around what TEC is available, and how a range of technology can provide support for a range of conditions. The challenge is to know what TEC innovations are out there. 

Flexibility & Choice

Choice for the customer is paramount and should always be seen as a critical element in allowing technology to be flexible to meet and fit the requirements of the person, service and workforce. Ensuring a person-centered approach can only be achieved if the person has been fully supported to have a choice in the TEC they wish to receive. 

Keeping the individual at the heart of your TEC delivery

Utilising technology to promote educated and informed decisions on the planning and delivery of TEC services is the direction our TEC sector is moving towards. Monitoring data of an individual’s wellbeing is one key element that allows health, housing and social care provision to become more proactive and puts the individual at the heart of the end-to-end service delivery.  

Joint commissioning/Partnership working

Creating true partnerships with your TEC solution providers. Do not work in silos, share the best practice examples of your outcomes with colleagues in other departments to drive collaboration and raise awareness. When looking at your services, think about how TEC can work holistically across both adults and children’s services, forcing a joined up working approach. 

Interoperability & Integration

Don’t limit the TEC you can provide, ensuring you use open protocols, fully integrated solutions, procurement requirements to reflect this. Ensure TEC suppliers provide clear information on their data security approach – make use of the TAPPI Data Security questionnaire (opens new window).

Engaged workforce

Gaining buy-in from the workforce is essential to ensure they are advocates for your service and the technology you embed. Having your workforce involved in purchasing decisions around TEC, utilising their hands-on expertise and their understanding of the needs and wants of customers will play a vital role in ensuring you choose the right solution. Look at how you can support the upskilling of your workforce and what more can be done for your workforce to support the promotion/ awareness of TEC across your whole organisation. 

Quality Standards

The TSA strongly recommends that Commissioners mandate that organisations involved in the end-to-end delivery of TEC to their customs are certified by TEC Quality according to the Quality Standards Framework (QSF). Quality and safety must be within the foundations of end-to-end service delivery. 

So how do we take the enablers above, and build this into a TEC approach?

Below you will find three phases: Discovery, TEC Identification and TEC Procurement.  

Taking into consideration the above enablers, the steps below further break down key activities within each of the phases.   

When creating your TEC approach, one critical element that should be embedded into each phase, is to ensure you build co-production and representation from lived experience into all steps of TEC engagement and carry this through to your procurement stage.  

Ensuring you create your TEC approach beginning your procurement journey with co-production in place, is likely to result in the purchase of technology that is user-friendly and appropriately meets real needs.   

A co-produced procurement process can create a feeling of stakeholder ownership and consequently increase the chances of the benefits of technology proving long, lasting outcomes and having buy-in from all stakeholders.  

To help you embed co-production, the following steps cover the key phases that can help ensure you are doing so through all stages: 

1. Identify a steering group 
2. Preparatory work 
3. Shortlisting 
4. Hold interviews and plan onboarding 
5. Review and reflect 

Further information on each phase can be found on the TAPPI ‘How to co-produce a technology procurement?’ guidance. 

Discovery phase:

1. Understand the makeup of physical locations i.e. cohort involved, any specific info regarding levels of need, technical systems already in place, individual pieces of technology already in place, call monitoring provider (if applicable), installation provider (if applicable), capability i.e. analogue/digital/ability to use tablet/add-ons.
2. Understand needs/desired outcomes – feedback from residents/tenants, users of services, families, social care commissioners/social workers, housing officers/support staff, etc.
3. Establish a steering group consisting of managers, staff, residents/tenants, users of services, family and friends representation to manage the process. 

TEC identification:

1. Work with each stakeholder group to create common series of problem statements/scenarios (both to share with prospective suppliers and to use to support general awareness raising within the organisation). 
2. Map potential TEC solutions (based on information on known suppliers, or ask TSA to provide information on supplier organisations) against problem statements/scenarios.  
3. Create and send out short requirements brief to selected suppliers asking for expression of interest and responses to scenarios.  
4. Review supplier responses and shortlist to those that have the best fit. 
5. Establish a review group consisting of managers, staff, resident/tenant and users’ representation.  
6. Create a simple evaluation document for innovation showcase.  
7. Host innovation showcase (online or face to face) – suppliers to give short pitch on how they could deliver required outcomes to review group (including Q&A with audience)  

TEC procurement:

1. Ensure there is support, where needed, from the wider organisation and from TSA and peer organisations that have already developed their TEC approach, with procurement approach, managing the placing of orders and agreeing lead times and ensuring there is ongoing support from suppliers.  
2. Develop an implementation plan, starting with a smaller test and learn phase to iron out any issues, check the solutions are delivering as required and to capture feedback and lessons learnt from residents and staff, before entering into a wider roll-out plan.

Once you have your TEC approach created, this is the stage to start embedding this into practice and no doubt you will have to overcome barriers, exploring new methods and identifying which enablers work best for your organisation and individuals being supported. At this stage, it is essential to share lessons learnt, positive outcomes captured, feedback and overall best practice that can be utilised by fellow TEC providers. The creation of your TEC approach will be a live process, with continuous amends and changes that reflect the desired outcomes of your service and customers. 

During the TAPPI process, we asked the testbed sites to provide us feedback on how they have practically tried and tested deploying a person-centred TEC approach.

Daniel Rock, TAPPI TEC Project Officer at Platform Housing shared his views with a focus on the need to ensure co-production is a driver within the decision-making process:

If you are currently exploring, developing or embedding your TEC strategy, please reach out to TSA’s membership team who will be happy to talk through any comments or queries you may have and share the lessons learned from the TAPPI programme with your organisation, membership@tsa-voice.org.uk