Northumberland retirement living scheme becomes UK's first test site for digital telecare system

Residents at a retirement living scheme in Northumberland are benefiting from a digital upgrade as their home becomes the UK’s first test site for a new, innovative personal alarm and response service system.

Karbon Homes has partnered with telecare equipment supplier Legrand Care to trial ‘Infinity Grouped Living’ at its Park View scheme in Lynemouth, a digital touch screen system designed to offer customers improved connection and help reduce isolation.

Kelly Taylor, assistant director of Housing at Karbon Homes said: “At Karbon we’re passionate about helping residents to live independently for longer. We were keen to explore different smart-living technologies that provide a helping hand and give residents access to the support they need to feel safe and happy in their home.

“Working with the ‘Infinity Grouped Living’ system has been a fantastic opportunity to test what new technology in our customers’ homes could look like. We’ve made sure our Park View residents have remained at the heart of the trial and their ongoing feedback throughout will really help us to understand the impact that going digital can make.”

A personal alarm and response service provides a link from a resident’s home to a 24-hour response centre, allowing them to call for help in an emergency.

The ‘Infinity Grouped Living’ trial is providing residents, who’s alarm and response service previously used a conventional analogue system with a pullcord, with a digital telecare connection that provides a faster response time and enables multiple calls to be made at once, to trained operators who can arrange the right help and support.

Legrand Care’s managing director, Chris Donnelly, added, “We are delighted to work with Karbon Homes on this new, innovative, premium Infinity Grouped Living Solution that offers enhanced social inclusion for its users. It was imperative to work with an organisation that was forward-thinking and could see the real benefits of digital connectivity for their residents.

As well as the alarm and response element, the system offers additional functionality to help residents stay connected and enhance the scheme’s security. This includes video door entry, flat-to-flat video calling and video call functionality for contacting the on-site scheme coordinator.

Residents have also gained access to two medical helplines, a pharmacy helpline for medication queries and a 24hr nurse helpline for any general medical queries, through Karbon’s call provider PPP Taking Care.

Chris added: “We are also very pleased to work with our long-term digital ARC partner, PPP Taking Care, who have moved significantly along the digital journey, enabling us to deliver a full digital ecosystem using the industry-approved protocol BS8521-2, with Karbon Homes now benefiting from complete end-to-end digital interoperability.”

Kelly added: “Alongside all the other benefits, we’d love the trial to help build our customer’s digital confidence, which we know really helps older people stay connected. We’ll continue to work with Le Grand to explore what the system can offer, and our residents to understand what benefits it brings them.

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily

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