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In the context of an increase in the ageing UK population, and the importance of assisted living technology and telecare, this article reports on a study exploring underlying issues regarding the uptake of home care technology in Scotland. The study used scenario-based focus groups with a wide variety of stakeholders in home care to identify barriers to the successful uptake of assisted living technologies. 6 focus group sessions were conducted with individual stakeholder groups (social care workers, policy makers, telecare installation technicians, older users, and informal carers) and 5 with mixed stakeholder groups. The focus groups used the same home care scenario to identify and categorise perceptions, attitudes and expectations of stakeholders, and the emerging themes were analysed. The themes were: acceptance issues; ethical, legal and privacy issues; availability of resources; personalisation and evolution of provision; and awareness, education, and training. The article presents results, with examples from the focus groups, identifies barriers to uptake of home care technologies, and discusses how the barriers might be overcome. The authors note that there is a clear demand for awareness raising and knowledge building on the range, scope and capabilities of current assistive and home care technologies.
Clark et al. (Fri,) studied this question.