Further to WQ90292, how many local authorities in Wales has the Technology Enabled Care Responder Service been rolled out to, and will the Minister provide the local authorities which are still awaiting the Technology Enabled Care Responder Service to be rolled out?
Currently, there is not a standardised technology enabled responder service deployed across Wales.
TEC Cymru is working with local authorities to assess how developments within the regions align to work being shaped for an all-Wales approach to avoid disjointed services at a regional level. TEC Cymru is actively supporting organisations, looking at exemplar services already in place within Wales, such as the Delta Wellbeing Model and the Vale of Glamorgan Council’s Telecare Response service, and in the UK and internationally, and applying lessons learnt to identify opportunities for a potential service model for Wales.
As stated in WQ90292, we are unable to mandate local authority “direction of travel” to adopt all-Wales digital services but continue to work with TEC Cymru to modernise and encourage the adoption of standardised technology enabled responder services.
Services provided by the following local authorities could be described as technology enabled – Delta Wellbeing, a local authority trading company operating out of Carmarthenshire, across four local authority areas: Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion, and Neath Port Talbot, which provides a package of proactive telecare to service users as part of a wider package of health and wellbeing care, including a response service in the event of an alarm being triggered.
And the Vale of Glamorgan Council (supported by TEC Cymru) has successfully piloted its Telecare Response Service (November 2022 – 2023) using St John Ambulance services and is the first in Wales to directly link the service to its Telecare Alarm Receiving Centre in Barry. The service arrangement has continued into a second year.