Adult Social Care Digital Plans

Suzy Dixon is a Project Manager for ‘Being Digital’, a programme from East Sussex Adult Social Care. Here she explains how it can help the community.

Whether you embrace gadgets and technology enthusiastically or you give it as wide a berth as possible, no one can deny that digital technology is everywhere. For many of us it has become an integral aspect of our daily life.

In Adult Social Care we have embarked on an ambitious programme called Being Digital. It describes our vision for increasing our digital capabilities to help meet the needs of our community and our workforce. Through technology we will support residents to access the information they need to make choices about their care and support and to engage with us in a way and at a time that suits them. We want to enable those who can use digital tools to do so, as well as support those who cannot use digital tools but would like to.

Being Digital is not about replacing our services with digital only. Instead, we want to make more of our services available digitally. Making services available digitally can bring many benefits, including saving time and effort by making services available at a time most suitable to you. We don’t want to dissuade people from contacting us using traditional methods: we want to offer choice. For some people, digital tools help them make the most of precious free time as well as reduce the cost of travel or remove the restrictions of office opening hours.

One of the digital tools adult social care have adopted is video calling, and we use a product called Microsoft Teams. It allows us to contact carers and clients using our computers and smartphones so that instead of just talking over the telephone we can also see each other on screen.

You may already have used Zoom, or Facetime, for example, to keep in touch with friends and family, especially during the recent lockdowns. Although Covid-19 restrictions have eased, adult social care want to continue to offer clients and carers the option of meeting via video call, where appropriate. If you prefer telephone or face-to-face contact, we will respect your choice.

We’re interested in hearing what you think and what your experiences have been to date. We’ve created a short survey here and would appreciate if you are able to take the time to complete it (it should take approximately one minute).

If you would like to tell Suzy more about your experiences and views of video calling, please email her at: Suzanne.Dixon@eastsussex.gov.uk.  A paper copy of the survey is available by writing to Suzy at: Suzy Dixon, Business Development, North A, County Hall, Lewes BN7 1UE.