Video: Telecare - the ethical debate

If there's one thing I'd recommend all Telecare Aware readers to do this week it's to set aside 13 minutes to watch a video from the UK's Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE - pronounced 'sky'). It's not just because SCIE is one of those institutions set up by the previous Government which may not survive changes that will be brought in by the new one, but because the video, entitled Telecare - The ethical debate is excellent. [Note, it autoplays.]

There is an element of 'looking at both sides' to it, but the real value, as with the previously mentioned case studies from Newham, is in seeing how the telecare services are being used sensitively in the UK to support people who in previous generations would have been in institutions where everything was done for, and to, them.

If you have a further 10 minutes to watch another video, Telecare - providing more personalised care can be accessed from the Related Videos tab, to the bottom right of the above page. It puts telecare technologies into the general context of assistive technology for older and disabled people. (Readers from the USA will, no doubt, wince when they hear the technologies being referred to as AT&T.)

There is accompanying text and other materials on the SCIE video web page and, linked to the SCIE material, is an article in Community Care this week, Ethical issues in the use of telecare.