Suffolk County Council has agreed on a contract worth up to £75 million with digital care solutions provider Alcove as its partner in the field.
It has published the contract notice on a new digital care partnership, saying the deal will initially last for three years from ‘go live’ with the option to extend for a further four in yearly increments.
Alcove will be responsible for developing and delivering a new operating model for leveraging care technologies and data in the adult social care sector, with the potential to take this into wider health and care.
The contract will be available for other groups in the east of England to procure the relevant services. This will cover the relevant local authorities, fire and rescue services, the ambulance service, probation service, health authorities and the voluntary and community sector.
Suffolk has previously reported using technology provided by Alcove, notably its Carephone service to keep vulnerable people connected with their families during the pandemic.
The council has also recently taken a pioneering step in trialling virtual reality to support people with dementia.
Update 1 June
Alcove released a statement saying it would work with change management consultancy Rethink Partners and social care service provider Provide CIC to develop a service named Cassius. It said this would provide monitoring and assessments with data for insights into what people need.
Over the next few months this will develop into a wider, more integrated package of technology.
Councillor Beccy Hopfensberger, cabinet member for Adult Social Care at SCC said: “We’re really excited to launch this new service and to offer people in Suffolk a simple, accessible, seamless and flexible approach.
“Our teams have worked hard over the last couple of years to create a vision of how we would like our digital care model to be – setting us aside from other local authorities. As we move away from the traditional analogue approach, we are embracing this opportunity to provide a pioneering and intelligent service that will evolve and adapt alongside societal needs.”
Image from iStock, Natali Mis
