Creating a telesupport service

Internet Protocol (or IP) communications technologies are now cheap and robust enough for a wide range of applications. A consortium of charities, lead by Anastasia Williams of Xpedita, realised the technology could be shaped into a service that might effectively support their clients.

United response, Help the Hospices and Marie Curie Cancer Relief support people with terminal illnesses, mental health issues or learning difficulties. Most of these people prefer to be at home rather than in hospital; this technology might provide them with a way of getting good support comfortably at home.

I organised and lead an evaluation of four different types of IP-based video communication. We carried out an expert appraisal to weed out the non-starters, then conducted a set of in-context studies to establish the needs and how well they might be satisfied.

Two things came over spontaneously and overwhelmingly…

Firstly, that there was a clear need for this type of service and support. Just about everyone we worked with, no matter what their disability, felt that the technology was suitable to live with and could deliver something of value to them.

Moreover they felt that this technology would enable them to provide support to others as well as receive it. We had not expected to hear that quite so resoundingly.

The study identified a videophone that worked well. I also provided comprehensive guidelines for the development of services that might be based on this technology. Two of the three charities are now piloting services.

I am now working with United Response, piloting a service using an Aupix videophone in the West Sussex area. I am carrying out the external evaluation and will use the findings to develop a new service to provide videophone “telesupport” to a wider audience.

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