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Our impact on the TEC sector

TSA work programmes and strategic activity during COVID-19 accelerated its support of the TEC sector and its influence in the wider health and social care network.

 

 

 

 

 

When COVID-19 hit in March 2020, the TSA team responded rapidly to the needs of not only its member organisations but also to the wider technology enabled care sector. Our approach was that the entire sector needed support and our responsibility was towards all those providing TEC services.

Objective: to help organisations to maintain services to the 1.8 million older and vulnerable people during lockdown and to an additional 2.5 million “shielding”.

Action: to assess the current state of their services and help them minimise disruption to service delivery, ensuring continuity of care into communities throughout the four member states.

How did we do this?

As part of the TSA COVID-19 Outreach Programme to the TEC sector, we managed to reach out to 92% of all monitoring and alarm receiving centres in the UK (totalling 162) through an ongoing 11-month programme of Teams/telephone calls, surveys and online forum interaction for continuous feedback.

The outreach programme also gave support to those certified against TSA’s subsidiary Quality Standards Framework run by TEC Quality – our team of auditors rapidly pivoted the standards scheme to enable remote auditing to ensure the framework's 150 certified organisations continued to maintain quality standards in service delivery to keep the vulnerable safe during a time of crisis. TSA also assisted the review of members’ Business Continuity Plans such as facilitating homeworking operations, shifting their operations from office to homeworking in a rapid timeframe. TSA also supported the continuous flow of equipment supply chain of technology enabled care stock and services including escalation, and resolution of issues by facilitating connections between services and suppliers.

 

Guidance, tools and Training

TSA rapidly created ongoing tools and guidance for services around Flexible Working and Safer Working Environment within its COVID-19 Resource Area on the website. Within weeks, we had also shifted our training and workforce development model from face to face to a virtual environment and devised new content and courses in direct response to COVID-19 needs resulting in the new TSA Academy.

 

 

Expanding team

The TSA team were working around the clock and the heightened level of activity demanded an expansion of the team with a recruitment drive, taking on 7 permanent staff, 4 Associates and 6 new trainers. Whilst most organisations were reducing or furloughing staff, TSA was expanding.



 

Lobbying

Led by CEO Alyson Scurfield, TSA successfully lobbied for Key/Critical Worker status for TEC workers (alongside NHS staff) and successfully lobbied for better and faster access to PPE. It ran a similar campaign for the Vaccination Programme for TEC workers to be included in the early cohort alongside social care staff.

 

 

 

Engagement

The outreach programme extended into increased engagement and support of the memberships and wider sector. All events were delivered online and through the power of TSA’s Marketing and Events began an intense programme of webinars and virtual events – both strategic and operational. During the pandemic, TSA delivered more than 50 virtual events (with 5426 registrations) to the memberships, to the TEC sector and to partner sectors in health, housing and social care with an increase in member engagement of 281% . TSA’s ITEC Conference went fully virtual, increased from 2 to 4 days in duration and targeted new audiences in health, housing & social care, a key indicator of the expansion of the sector and interest in the benefits and impact of technology enabled care.

 

 

 

TEC Heroes campaign

During the Clap for the NHS campaign, the Marketing team ran a parallel TEC Heroes campaign (#TECheroes) to keep up morale of TEC workers during the pandemic; this included ongoing PR in print, BBC radio features with some of our members and thought leadership pieces from some of our key executives in the broadsheets and trade press, with support and funding from Sunderland NHS Clinical Commissioning Group. Key messages: showcasing the people behind the sector who were keeping people safe, away from hospital, reducing pressure on emergency (statutory) services and providing reassurance at a time of heightened anxiety and increased social isolation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Partnerships and Commissioned work

COVID-19 and the virtual environment has allowed TSA to form meaningful partnerships and with new audiences. CEO Alyson Scurfield and her executive team were engaged from the beginning on specific working groups to ensure the TEC sector and the voice of TSA members were represented and to share good practice during a time of crisis.

The end goal is raising awareness of the value of digital solutions and technology enabled care and services, and now it integrates into the wider health network to create a proactive and preventative model of joined up careand improved delivery of care for better outcomes for people. TSA’s mission, vision and values statements include Stronger Together and Making a Difference to People’s Lives and this has proved synergistic with all our partners to date.

 

Department of Health & Social Care

Due to the outreach programme and TSA’s influence on working groups, it caught the attention of Department of Health and Social Care and conversations began about the TEC sector’s COVID-19 response. As a result, DHSC commissioned TSA to create the Sector Insight Report– this explored how TEC services were protecting new Shielding Groups by supporting those services to develop proactive support using new innovative technology and the service wraparound. DHSC has since commissioned TSA a second time to continue our proactive and preventative Care programme with outputs including the creation of a national TEC Knowledge Hub and a maturity matrix for service providers for progression of their service.

 

 

 

Association of Directors of Adult Social Care

A key partnership for TSA is with ADASS.

TSA co-launched a Report created from a joint Commission:

How can technology be truly integrated into adult social care? Enabling workforces to make efficient and effective use of technology and data to improve outcomes for people, families and carers

The findings and recommendations were presented at ITEC conference in March 2021 to local and central government on how to truly integrate technology for the urgent reform of social care.

 

next steps...

What sets TSA apart is the speed with which we have pivoted our organisation, produced support and guidance, helped our members stay agile in the face of COVID-19 response and now have the ear of key government departments to affect real system change. Whilst some organisations are just now producing assets based on COVID-19 response, the DHSC-commissioned TSA Sector Insight Report was produced and launched by 17 July 2020 just 4 months after the pandemic hit, and our first webinar went live to the sector 26 March, just 10 days after lockdown. This combined formula of activity, energy, mission and the right team of people has ensured that TSA is more than a membership organisation, it is an agent for change all the way to the top for the betterment of society.

your voice

We would love to hear what you're doing in the sector in 2021 and what your plans are for 2022 and beyond. Our Team are on hand to support you in a number of key business areas, whether it's further insight into TECS, market opportunities, business healthcheck or growth, system transformation, analogue to digital shift, workforce and training issues, quality standards, marketing or membership support.

admin@tsa-voice.org.uk

01625 520320