by Kate
30. June 2010 17:03
Tomorrow we are holding a half day seminar with
http://www.nesta.org.uk/, on how the web could help shape the future of care for older people.
What does the future hold for social care? In last year’s ‘Shaping the Future Together’ green paper, the government outlined the need for drastic changes to care for older people. We need better, more responsive services, with greater focus on dignity in care and a more personalised approach to service provision. But how can we reconcile this demand with the crisis in the public finances?
The web may be a part of the solution. The online world has already transformed the way we book a holiday, buy a camera, and share the snaps. Whole sectors – media, music, finance, publishing – are being turned upside down. And there are already some powerful examples of the impact that the web can have on public services: with sites that support citizen engagement in politics; help people to improve their neighbourhood; or help patients improve their local NHS. How could the web contribute to older people’s care?
The government has recently announced a new £2.9m ‘Get Digital’ programme - meaning that nearly 20,000 people living in sheltered housing will soon be ‘switched on’ to the internet. So now is the perfect time to ask if the web can provide innovative solutions to help transform care for older people.
For the last year Patient Opinion has been piloting work with older people’s care online and we know that there are many inspired, motivated and passionate people working in older people’s care. This seminar will bring together people from the care sector with web professionals who are equally passionate about using the web as a tool for social innovation. It will explore how, together, we might use the new tools of the web in the service of care for older people. There will be plenty of new ideas – but also plenty of practical examples of what is already being done.
Follow the action live on twitter, using #care10. Results from the day will be online - and we'll post them up here.
The programme looks exciting - do take a look:
Care homes seminar programme_final v4.DOCX (19.22 kb)
by Paul
30. June 2010 09:46
Conversations are the life blood of Patient Opinion – carrying your story to the heart of the NHS is, after all what we are all about. But why just the NHS? Conversations are the stuff of politics and democracy too – why not share patient stories with MPs, local authorities and scrutiny committees?
From 7 July 2010 Patient Opinion will begin to do just that. We will be offering a free email alerting service to all Westminster MPs, so they can be automatically alerted to what their constituents are saying about local health services and post a response if they want. The new service is being launched next week at Portcullis House in London.
We hope that this will have many benefits. Patients stories and experiences will have greater reach and power. MPs will be able to monitor what local people think of their health services and, if they want, show that they are listening by posting comments.
Patient Opinion is already showing how stories are helping improve health care - and soon we will be able to show which local and national stakeholders are actively listening to any particular story too. Is your LINk listening? Is the provider using Patient Opinion? Is your MP in the loop?
All this is an exciting new development in online civic engagement – a way to use the power of voice to promote discussion and help bring a truly patient-centred health service into being.
The Big Society is often seen as being about two things: freeing data, so that it can be mashed up and better used. And freeing the energy of citizens, via social enterprises, to solve problems in new ways.
We think it is also about creating structured, helpful, local conversations that create more engagement and many more service improvements at much lower cost than has ever been possible before.
by Paul
1. June 2010 14:17
The Big Society is easy to lampoon but I wonder….
When Thatcher was elected in 1979 privatisation did not figure for several years but gradually became a core policy. This happened partly because it raised handy billions but also because it acted as a clear policy principle: wherever possible people not the state should end up owning stuff.
Clearly there are echoes here for the Big Society. In times of recession the Big Society may – perhaps - be a way to reduce the bills by outsourcing services onto citizens. Dubious but possible.
More important though the idea of the Big Society may turn out to be the same kind of divining rod for this government as privatisation did for Thatcher. Faced with a policy dilemma both wings of the coalition may find it useful to ask ‘will this policy increase the power of the state or decrease it?’
It might seem counterintuitive for the politicians to give power away – but then it was counter-intuitive to many when Thatcher gave away the family silver in her privatisation fire sales.
But perhaps this credits politicians with more power and insight than they deserve. I think the real importance of the Big Society is not because it tells where Cameron will take us, but what he is following. He senses incoherently that the relationship between citizen and government has already changed and the Big Society is his way of trying to ride the change. He hopes that this will lead to a renewal of civic virtue – that people will flock to start schools, car pooling and recycling. Well that might or might not happen but what sure IS happening, and what is driving the change that Cameron transmutes into the Big Society, is people’s willingness to share their stories via social media. Without knowing it perhaps Patient Opinion is already part of the Big Society!
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