Shropshire Council

Health and social care services across the UK are facing increasing pressure on service delivery and reducing budgets, driven, in part by an aging population. Shropshire has a population 15% older than the national average and aging faster and a population density 4X sparser at 0.88 people per hectare.

This presents both challenge and opportunity. Preventable falls cost the NHS £1.5 billion per year this does not include the wider consequential costs of aftercare to social services or the costs to individuals and their families.

Telecare and assistive technology have already demonstrated real world savings and improved outcomes to individuals, however the specialist nature of these technology markets lead to inflexible technology, slow development and high costs to self-funders or local authorities.

The £80,000 LDF would fund a discovery phase project exploring creating a common digital standard allowing councils to harness more advanced and cost effective consumer technology e.g. fitness trackers, to detect, predict and prevent falls. Final outcome of a digital solution that can be scaled rapidly at low cost to most authorities across the UK reducing A&E admissions and the consequential financial and human impact.