Councils and their TEC suppliers are fixated on financial motivations; here’s why that mindset is actually putting a brake on progress (and savings!)
How much do you value closing your door on the world each evening for some uninterrupted down time? Or choosing when you’ll eat next? Or making your own plans for seeing friends and family?
We know that older adults and those with complex care needs value their privacy, dignity and autonomy every bit as much as the rest of us, yet these very important metrics for success in the care sector can be overlooked in pursuit of a simple cash argument: money can be saved. Suppliers want to state it, councils want to hear it, but though the financial case for care tech solutions can be strong, reducing the equation just to ROI can hamstring commissioners, and hold everyone back.
Of course no one sets out to put a brake on progress. It takes a good shove to get wheels moving on change and that’s exactly what a compelling financial case provides. For risk averse, cash-strapped councils, cashable savings represent a clear green light to invest in care technology. But are we setting the bar unrealistically (and unfairly?) high? Is the obsession with ROI unintentionally dampening curiosity and choking innovation among the very people whose job it is to strive for bold, ambitious and creative solutions?
As one digital care lead told us, it’s incredibly frustrating to see reactive spending get a quick OK in other parts of the local authority while innovative care tech solutions have to clear a much higher bar. Especially given the level of urgency in adult social care. “Firstly it’s inequitable in terms of how other services are measured,” the digital care commissioner for a London council told us. “There’s no other service I can think of where delivering a net financial benefit is an expectation or a requirement. Secondly, I think it totally overlooks the added value care tech can provide to somebody in terms of progress, improved outcomes, independence and overall wellbeing.”
And here’s the rub. Those of us involved in the roll-out of care packages with a digital element know that installing discreet, intuitive tech into people’s lives quietly reduces their risk of developing more acute needs. For some, it can reduce the need for hands on care – now – and make an immediate saving. For many it delays the necessity to escalate their care plan and mitigates some of the problems that are making life difficult. But additionally it can give people agency over their own circumstances, amplify their voice and put them back at the centre of the services we build. In short, it can improve quality of life, putting joy, satisfaction and even fun back into the lives of people who have had to settle for less. How do we quantify that? How do we work it into our value propositions?
Tech companies, wise to the ways of commissioning councils, may not be as much help as you’d hope. Digital solutions are, perhaps unsurprisingly, often framed by the market in terms of the financial saving they can deliver to local authorities. Whether you’re promised a cost reduction (a step down in someone’s care plan that can generate cash savings) or, more likely, a cost avoidance (the prevention of care escalation), what we don’t hear enough is how your citizens can take a stronger stake in their own future.
Money, value and return on investment are under scrutiny like never before in our sector but that must sit alongside the higher purpose of empowering the people at the heart of our services Really, that’s what we’re all passionate about in the end.
About Clare Morris
Clare Morris is a former NHS leader and co-founder of Rethink Partners, working with health and care organisations to visualise and implement change for good.