Digital support for older adults in post-Covid futures: A qualitative pilot study to explore older adults' aspirations for their digitally enabled care arrangements

Covid-19 has changed the way in which the social care system uses digital technology. Whereas previous practice wisdom has highlighted the difficulty of implementing and scaling digital innovations within social care settings (Wright, Hamblin and Lariviere, 2020), Covid-19 has resulted in widespread uptake of digital technology within social care services in England and globally (Hamblin and Wright, forthcoming; Hamblin and Lariviere, forthcoming). Previous research has illustrated contemporaneous digital transformations within social care services leading up to and during the pandemic. Local authorities have begun to shift from ‘kits in a box’ to partnerships with digital technology providers, including global digital consumer brands like Microsoft and Amazon, to focus on curated systems of products (Wright, 2021). An increasing reliance on digital technology has both the potential to make care work appear ‘decent’, highly skilled, and well-paid as well as reduce care workers to ‘machine baby-sitters’, thereby undermining person-centred approaches to care enshrined within the sector and shared by sector leaders (Hamblin, 2022). While this body of research speaks to wider sectoral changes within adult social care, it provides limited understanding of how such prolific digital transformation has affected older adult service users (aged 65 years or older in February 2020).

Research carried out prior to the pandemic has demonstrated the disruptive and reaffirming potential of technology, such as GPS tracking devices, telecare, and assistive products to support older adults with and without a dementia (Gathercole et al., 2021; Lariviere et al., 2021; Lynch et al., 2021). However, further research is required to explore the experiences of older adults, a group disproportionately affected by reduced digital literacy and access to internet (Hamblin, 2020), who have used digitally enabled assistive and/or other care technologies during the Covid-19 pandemic. Our pilot study seeks to explore how shifts in the provision of digital technology has been experienced by older adults. Specifically, this study will explore how older adults viewed what worked (not so) well during the pandemic for them and how they would like to continue to use digital technology in their everyday lives, support, and care arrangements in the future.

Gathercole, R., Bradley, R., Harper, E., Davis, L., Pank, L., Lam, N., Davies, A., Talbot, E., Hooper, E., Winson, R., Scutt, B., Ordonez, V., Nunn, S., Lavelle, G., Lariviere, M. et al. (2021) “Assistive technology and telecare to maintain independent living at home for people with dementia: The ATTILA RCT”. NIHR Health Technology Assessment 19:1-156. DOI: 10.3310/hta25190

Hamblin, K. (2020) Care system sustainability: What role for technology? An evidence review. Sustainable Care Paper 3, CIRCLE, Sheffield: University of Sheffield.

Hamblin, K. (2022) ‘Technology in care systems: displacing, reshaping, reinstating or degrading roles?’ New Technology, Work and Employment, 37, 41-68, DOI:10.1111/ntwe.12229.

Hamblin, K. and Lariviere, M. (eds.) (forthcoming). Care Technologies for Ageing Societies: An International Comparison. Bristol: Policy Press.

Hamblin, K. and Wright, J. (forthcoming). ‘Chapter 2: Technology and adult social care in England’. In Hamblin, K. and Lariviere, M. (eds): Care Technologies for Ageing Societies: An International Comparison. Bristol: University Press.

Lariviere, M., Poland, F., Woolham, J., Newman, S. and Fox, C. (2021) “Placing assistive technology and telecare in everyday practices of people with dementia and their caregivers: Findings from an embedded ethnography of a national dementia trial". BMC Geriatrics 21(121). DOI:10.1186/s12877-020-01896-y

Lynch, J, Hughes, G, Papoutsi, C, Wherton, J & A'Court, C 2021, '“It's no good but at least I've always got it round my neck”: A postphenomenological analysis of reassurance in assistive technology use by older people', Social Science and Medicine. DOI:/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114553

Wright, J. (2021). ‘The Alexafication of Adult Social Care: Virtual Assistants and the Changing Role of Local Government in England’. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18, 812. DOI:10.3390/ijerph18020812.

Wright, J., Hamblin, K. and Lariviere, M. (2020). The potential of technology in adult social care. Sheffield: CIRCLE. http://circle.group.shef.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/The-Potential-of-Technology.pdf