Technology enabled care; support provided or funded by health and social care partnerships in Scotland

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides information on Technology Enabled Care (TEC) funded by local authorities in Scotland throughout financial year 2022/23. This includes number of people and the demographic breakdown of those in receipt of Technology Enabled Care, the type of care e.g. Community alarm and/or Telecare and the proportions of people with a community alarm and/or telecare who also receive Care at Home.

Main points

• The total number of people receiving Technology Enabled Care (TEC) funded by local authorities has risen by 2.7% from 2015/16 to just over 130,000 people in Scotland in financial year 2022/23.
• The number of people receiving a Community alarm only package funded by the local authority has decreased from just over 90,000 people in 2015/16 to just over 83,000 people in 2022/23.
• The number of people receiving a Telecare only package funded by local authorities has increased from under 7,000 people in 2015/16 to over 15,000 in 2022/23.
• 37% of people aged 85+ received a TEC package funded by the local authority in 2022/23.
• Number of people receiving TEC declined by deprivation. Around 23% of recipients of a TEC package are within the highest deprivation quintile whereas around 16% of recipients of a TEC package are in the least deprived quintile.
• During 2022/23 just under 41% of people who were in receipt of Technology Enabled Care were also in receipt of Care at Home services.

This chart presents national figures of the number of people in receipt of a Technology Enabled Care package from 2015/16 to 2022/23. The measure are those receiving community alarms only (just under 100,000 people), those receiving telecare only (around 10,000 people), those receiving both community alarms and telecare (around 40,000 people) and the total number of people (around 140,000 people) receiving any technology enabled care package. All measures have fairly consistent figures across the years.

Close

Number of people in receipt of a Technology Enabled Care Package; Scotland, 2015-16 to 2022/23

Background

Technology Enabled Care allows people to live safer and independent lives by reducing the risks of falls and vulnerable situations through technology and equipment. Information is provided for people who are in receipt of Technology Enabled Care (TEC) and are fully or partially funded by the local authority. PHS do not collect information on self-funded TEC packages and are therefore not included in the analysis.

Not all partnerships were able to provide data on Technology Enabled Care services and estimates are included within the trend analysis. Further information on data completeness and estimation are provided in the dashboards.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be February 2025.