https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/default/files/2018-12/Key-challenges-facing-the-adult-social-care-sector-in-England.pdf TECHNOLOGY IN CARE The Rise of Robocare
Could robots transform the elderly care sector? Kirk Taylor, Head of Development at public sector property developer and investor Kajima Partnerships, shares his thoughts…
Never before have the figures looked so stark. It is estimated that, by 2020, there will be a £1.5 billion funding gap between what is needed by local authorities to provide for adult social care, and its true cost. Health policy think tank The King’s Fund believes that this gap could widen to £6 billion by 2030/31. In tandem, chronic underfunding is driving care homes out of business.
or disabled people to go about day-to-day mundane tasks, helping them to live independently for longer and freeing up human care workers to focus on the more emotional aspects of caring.
The development of robotic care is being led by Japan, where a quarter of the population is aged 65 years or older. The Japanese labour ministry spent £3.7bn placing robots into 5,000 residential homes nationwide in 2017/18, in a programme which is testing devices from robopets that provide entertainment and companionship to beds that transform into wheelchairs. There are robots that facilitate rehabilitation, supporting and encouraging people as they learn how to walk again. Some can even gauge facial expressions, alerting staff to an individual’s distress.
A staggering 380 providers have collapsed since 2010, according to the Insolvency Service, and those who remain afloat find it hard to recruit. An already urgent situation is being exacerbated by the fact that care quality is ostensibly declining. For example, in 2018 over one third of local authorities saw CQC care home ratings worsen in their area, according to the charity Independent Age.
There is a clear and critical requirement for a new approach to the provision of elderly care, with governments of all stripes struggling to accommodate a growing elderly population living longer and with more complex health needs. What is abundantly clear is that real innovation is needed that will both deliver excellent, personalised care, together with cost efficiencies. Technology is transforming almost every aspect of human existence – are we about to see it revolutionise assisted living and elderly care?
There will be a shortage of 350,000 care workers by 2028, according to think tank IPPR. This profession has the highest turnover rate in the country, with almost one in three workers leaving every year. As the technology underpinning the development of human interaction, robotics has now become a viable solution. Production and distribution costs have been significantly reduced, making mass-production and real-world adoption feasible. Turning to robots is no longer a revolutionary concept, but fast becoming considered a genuine contributing solution to the care crisis. Developers are focusing on producing simple robotic devices that help frail
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The global market for nursing care and disabled aid robots, made up of mostly Japanese manufacturers, is still small - just $19.2 million in 2016, according to the International Federation of Robotics. However, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) estimates that the domestic industry alone will grow to 400 billion yen ($3.8 billion) by 2035, by which time a third of Japan’s population will be 65 or older. Some Western governments are even beginning to follow the trend. For example, Paro, a furry robotic seal, is used as a “therapy animal” in about 400 Danish senior homes.
Whilst robocare has many potential benefits, robotic assisted living also comes with many potentially life-changing implications, not just for the elderly but also the immobile and those with life-limiting cognitive conditions such as dementia or motor neurone disease. Its tandem, the prospect of reducing the burden on overstretched and under-resourced health services, should be a strong impetus for action to innovate and adopt technology in this respect.
As a society, we must also balance these benefits with the potential ethical consideration of employing a non- biological entity to care for those who are unable to care for themselves. Safety should be paramount, and our ambition should remain that robocarers should assist and liberate human carers, not replace them, and thereby limiting vital person-to-person contact.
To reap the potentially enormous benefits of robocare, both in assisting governments globally in solving the burgeoning elderly care crisis as well as improving patient outcomes, we need an ethical framework to guide the engineers who develop these products, as well as the robots themselves. Research and development must focus on technology that improves the lives of elderly people and the experience of workers, rather than reducing human interaction.
www.kajima.co.uk www.tomorrowscare.co.uk
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