The NHS could save more than £1.2 billion through widespread use of new non-intrusive lifestyle monitoring technology in social care, according to a new report.
The findings, part of new analysis commissioned by HealthTech company Lilli, suggest that more than two million hospital bed days could be saved, and the extra capacity created in social care able to fund the equivalent of 10,000 additional full-time carers in the system by 2035.
The report, produced by economists at Policy Points, was commissioned to make the case for urgent digitisation across the health and social care sector. It uses data from multiple local authorities across the UK who are currently using the AI-driven monitoring technology to address the growing care deficit and mounting social care crisis.
Entitled ‘From passive to proactive: How monitoring technology can help to solve the health and social care crisis’, the report follows recent social care promises from the new government to accelerate the adoption of technology in health and care and highlights the ‘domino effect’ that proactive monitoring employed in social care can have not just on council resources but also the NHS and patient outcomes.
It identifies hospital discharge or ‘bed blocking’ as a key area that can see a significant impact from the technology. Earlier discharge would amount to 2.3m additional bed days and almost £1.2bn in savings for the NHS, due to reduced costs of providing beds for patients over the next 10 years – enough to pay the salaries of 2,000 nurses over the period.
It would also lead to better health outcomes for the many thousands of people experiencing delayed discharge every day, with extended stays linked to higher risk of infections, adverse drug reactions and readmissions to hospital.
Likewise, the report finds adopting monitoring technology now would save councils £3bn by 2035 by supporting people to live independently at home for longer, and preventing thousands of people entering more expensive care settings, such as residential care.
Lifestyle monitoring technology works by tracking patterns of behaviour and key indicators of health, such as movement, eating and bathroom activity, and alerting carers to any changes. This allows care professionals to quickly make accurate care assessments, and safely monitor people’s health at home remotely, while being on the front foot to proactively spot signs of health decline before conditions require hospital treatment. Urinary Tract Infections have been identified as a key area where monitoring technology can help prevent hospital admissions.
According to the report, “there is strong evidence that lifestyle monitoring technology can generate essential, big-ticket savings for both the NHS and for social care, creating a digital dividend by protecting scarce hospital resources at the same time as boosting the productivity of carers”.
“Right now, the people who need care are not getting the help that they should, and the problem will only get worse as the population ages,” said Lilli CEO Kelly Hudson. “The numbers in this report speak for themselves.
“The savings and productivity figures highlight the profound difference that an investment in technology now would have not just on the system but on the lives of people up and down the country.”
Lifestyle monitoring technology Lilli is currently being used by multiple councils across the UK, including Islington, Nottingham and Reading, to enable people to live safely and independently at home.
Rebecca Andrew, service improvement manager from Nottinghamshire County Council, said: “The rollout of remote monitoring technology across Nottinghamshire allows our social care staff access to real time data, giving insights into a person’s behaviour over a period of time. This helps them to build a clear picture of what is going on in a person’s life and draw their attention to any potential change in their social care needs.
“This ensures we can put appropriate care and support in place that is personalised to the individual, and respond quickly to prevent crises, meaning fewer ambulance call outs and hospital admissions.”
The report goes on to explain how over the next ten years, the older population will ‘grow by millions’, increasing demand for its services, and for the health and care system to be sustainable, a commitment to overhauling the system at pace and scale is urgently needed.
Hudson added: “We are supportive of the new Health Secretary’s ambition for a ‘different politics on social care’ and we urge the new government to tackle the current crisis, proactively as they have pledged, by addressing the root cause of the issue. We are urgently calling for more support for the sector to adopt a technology-led approach to better support the people in need, reduce wasted costs and deliver better outcomes.”
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