TEC in Housing – the story so far

The social housing sector in Scotland reaches over 600,000 households across the country, most of whom live in general needs properties. The sector is uniquely placed to help reduce and/or prevent the number of people requiring formal services, by providing interventions further upstream.

In 2019, the Scottish Government’s Technology Enabled Care (TEC) programme funded a TEC in Housing (TECH) programme to upscale housing’s contribution to the Digital Health and Care Strategy for Scotland by focusing on service transformation, informed by customer co-design. The programme is hosted by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA). The TECH programme followed the TEC Ready project, a housing project funded by the TEC programme (2016-2019), and also hosted by SFHA, which demonstrated the capacity and potential to engage the housing sector in technology enabled care.

Now, an interim report has been released, highlighting the advances made by the TECH programme, over the past two and a half years, in securing the engagement of housing providers and their customers in this agenda, bridging the gap between housing, health and social care and delivering positive change.

These advances include:

• fifty Scottish housing organisations, which provide homes to over one in three of all Scottish social housing households in Scotland, have committed to the pledges set out in the TEC in Housing Charter
• a knowledge exchange, the TECH Community, has been established, providing support to charter signatory organisations as they work towards fulfilling their ambitions
• organisations are accessing case studies and other resources via the TEC in Housing website to gain inspiration and practical advice to progress this work
• strong working relationships have been forged with a range of providers, representative bodies and other stakeholders across housing, health, care, industry and academia, enabling synergy at an organisational and project level.
• housing and care colleagues have been encouraged to make joint applications for Digital Telecare funding
• an increase in the number of staff in the housing workforce trained in TEC as a result of the work being embedded in a postgraduate housing course
• housing is now fully included in the Digital Telecare programme, with a post dedicated to supporting housing providers’ transition. Housing providers are also receiving funding
• the Near Me video appointment service is being rolled out across the housing sector, with a housing specific post created and 52 housing organisations, made up of registered social landlords and local authorities, having accounts registered
• engagement with the Digital Health and Care Directorate to enable housing associations to contribute to the shaping of the first Digital Health and Care Data Strategy for Scotland
• increased participation by housing staff in NHS Education Scotland (NES) run digital skills courses
• a Healthier Homes initiative has been established, and a group of housing pathfinders are actively engaging with customers as they explore together how the internet of things (IoT) could enable more preventative and proactive approaches to wellbeing, by pre-empting or identifying earlier situations that can lead to health inequalities and addressing them
• work on tests of change that brings together groupings of local housing providers and their health and social care partnership (HSCP) telecare colleagues to help improve fire safety among vulnerable customers, using technologies that are new to them.

The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) data tells us that many customers of social housing live in the most deprived areas in Scotland and, as such, are likely to experience poorer health outcomes than the overall population. This in turn often results in greater frequency of use of health services and potentially

Customers of social landlords extend to factored owners, to homeless households, to those seeking advice, and to people on housing waiting lists. Through private sector teams, Care and Repair, Housing Options Scotland, Shelter Scotland, and Disabled Persons Housing Services, the sector has important key links with those living in the private rented sector as well as owners.

Building on the preparatory work of the TEC Ready project, which demonstrated the capacity and potential to engage the housing sector in life-changing, practical applications of TEC within its mainstream services, the TECH programme aimed to scale up housing’s contribution to the Digital Health and Care Strategy for Scotland, with a focus on service transformation, informed by customer co-design.

The overarching objective of TEC in Housing is to provide the opportunity for households in Scotland to live well and independently, at home, for longer, with digital services that best support their needs. By creating focus throughout the sector and bringing people together from housing, health and social care, the aim is to support housing providers to adopt technology which supports independent living across Scotland and prevents or delays the need for people to access formal care.

This interim report highlights the progress made over the last two and a half years in terms of raising awareness of the challenges and opportunities that digital technologies present, bridging the gap between housing, health and care, engaging with and supporting the housing sector, and engaging with its customers and other homeowners.

You can access the report in the downloads section which can be found to the right of this page.

If you’d like to find out more, please email me selliot@sfha.co.uk