A trial of telecare for supporting care to the elderly in Liverpool

A pilot telecare system was trialled in Liverpool. It was used to support the provision of care to 21 of the city council's elderly and frail social services clients. A typical installation consisted of about 20 wireless, ambient sensors in the client's home. A home gateway device ran alerting algorithms designed to learn the normal patterns of user behaviour and to identify deviations from this in real-time. When deviations were detected, social service delivery teams were alerted to a possible cause for concern. The pilot service ran for about 30 months and included a period of examination by independent evaluators. The evaluation found that overall the people who used the service - both users and carers - were overwhelmingly pleased with it and viewed it as a great success.