Oysta & Southampton City Council care for the most vulnerable during pandemic
As with every other Local Authority in the UK, the provision of care to its most vulnerable residents was the priority for Southampton City Council during the COVID-19 crisis. Ensuring the well-being of people living on their own and shielding because of medical vulnerability continues to be a significant challenge for social care providers across the UK.
The need
Achieving powerful well-being monitoring and enabling reliable remote care for over 200 elderly and vulnerable people being discharged from hospital was an urgent need and priority for Southampton City Council. Requiring immediate action, the council worked closely with Oysta Technology to quickly deliver this service. Speaking on behalf of Southampton City Council, Carol Kendall, Community Services Manager, expands:
“A key priority for the council during lockdown was to continue to deliver high-quality social care services to our most vulnerable people living within private and social housing, as well as temporary accommodation within the city. The challenge was to maintain care and self-confidence for people living independently, whilst keeping residents and staff members safe by following social distancing guidelines. We were already successfully using GPS solutions from Oysta Technology, so we had no hesitation in turning to them to provide us with the fast and efficient service that we have come to expect from them.”
The solution
Working closely with Southampton City Council, Oysta delivered 1,020 ‘Help at Home’ solutions.
Designed to enable the Vulnerable Independent User (VIP) to live with confidence, safe in the knowledge that should they need help it is available 24/7 and that the Help at Homes solution is, critically, easy to use. Digital and able to work straight out of the box, Help at Home does not require an in-home visit from an engineer. This key benefit enabled Southampton City Council to deploy devices rapidly and safely to those most in need.
“It allowed us to offer a doorstep installation, rather than having to go into our client’s property. There was no need to go in to connect to a telephone or power supply, so we were able to leave the device on the doorstep. Once the client had turned it on, we were able to talk them through how to use it at a distance, having already been able to remotely set up each device to match the requirements of the user. The Help at Home solution enabled us to up-hold social distancing, keeping our staff and our most vulnerable residents safe during a public health crisis.” Said, Carol.
Reliable care
Connected to Oysta Technology’s innovative IntelliCare platform, the Help at Home solution places the VIP under the immediate cover of the over-arching Oysta care network. Being digital means that they are extremely flexible and able to reliably monitor VIP well-being wherever they are in the home or community. Connecting the VIP with a selection of people and services all focused on their individual care, IntelliCare enabled a proactive and preventative digital healthcare provision.
IntelliCare has the ability to incorporate any digital sensor, monitor or alarm within the home, and will collect and collate data, alerting telecare teams to any abnormality relating to time, movement, temperature within the home, or distance travelled within any safe zones that has been set up outside of the home.
The result
“With time working against us, it was vital that we were working with a reliable partner that could provide us with a solution that would absolutely tick all of the boxes. I am pleased to say that Oysta Technology and the Help at Home solution gave us all of that. Working with Oysta enabled us to ensure that we were able to continue to provide the vital care and support that our elderly and vulnerable clients needed as we went into lockdown. We have received some amazing feedback from our clients and their families, the majority being very grateful that they were given a Help at Home solution and are happy that they continue to have the peace of mind that the solution provides for them as lockdown is easing.
Norma Colverson who lives in Millbrook, Southampton, on being asked by Southampton City Council what she thought of her Help at Home solution, said: “I’m quite happy, and I was able to get through to someone straight away, I can even phone my daughter at a touch of a button.”
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