HOUSING & REGENERATION

By educating themselves on how the upgrade might impact services, providers will be able to plan accordingly and ensure they are able to get the right devices working in the homes of their tenants. However, it’s important to remember that technology can’t and shouldn’t be used to replace human interaction, but it can be used to target care where and when it is needed most. This will ultimately make housing services more efficient.

Housing providers can also ensure they are well prepared by partnering with a range of stakeholders involved in the digital transition. Whether this is communications providers or technology partners, collaboration is required to develop an effective solution that mitigates the risk of disruption in service delivery. It’s also important to seek advice to ensure any investment can deliver longer as well as shorter term benefits, i.e. choosing technology solutions that will evolve over time.

Implementing tech to drive cost efficiency in practice

Tunstall Healthcare has worked closely with Lincolnshire Housing Partnership (LHP), not only on a day-to-day basis, but have also collaborated to prepare a strategy for the UK’s transition to a digital communications network and adapting its services to become more resilient and agile during and post pandemic.

LHP and Tunstall have worked to audit existing schemes and equipment and scope a potential footprint for new technology and service delivery models. The relationship with the healthcare provider is multi-layered — as well as working together to improve services to LHP customers, Tunstall has supported LHP’s successful bids to provide TECS to other organisations, and enable initiatives with partners in health and social care.

Embedding the change

With implementation of the current reform agenda already underway, as well as the significant pressures on existing services, it is understandable that the bandwidth for addressing yet another issue such as technological change may feel peripheral when compared to the scale of charging reform or current workforce challenges.

However, it’s widely understood that technology needs to be front and centre of any strategy to drive true change. It is likely to provide the best route over time to enhancing the capacity of housing services whilst at the same time reducing pressure on the workforce and maintaining high quality services. Housing providers should be thinking now about where technologies could reduce expected pressures in the future.