Telecare: New fad or the key to the delivery of new services?

Abstract

No one concerned with changes to service frameworks can have failed to notice the attention now increasingly given to telecare, i.e. the provision of care and support at a distance and mediated by communications technologies. The notion of telecare is relatively new although most will be familiar with its component parts; drawing on social alarms (personal response systems), smart home technologies, telemedicine and telehealth (Fisk, 2003). The context is also familiar; one where cash-strapped service providers have little alternative but to find better means of supporting people in situ rather than face the prospect of more people being admitted, staying for longer or living in institutions.