Scotland launches telecare framework

Scotland's procurement body for local authorities has set up a framework for telecare services. Scotland Excel has said that all 32 Scottish councils, plus two of the country's largest housing associations, have confirmed they will use the contract. Six suppliers have won places: Chubb Systems, ICare, Jontek, Possum, Tunstall Healthcare and Tynetec. The contract will be open initially until the end of December 2013, but could be extended by a further year. The organisation said the key objective is to enable older people, those with disabilities or mental health problems and other vulnerable people to live as independently as possible in their own homes. It also aims to help remove some longstanding interoperability issues and provide more flexibility in the choice of equipment. The forecast spend for each participating local authority is about £3.4m a year, equating to £10.2m over the term of the framework, including the extension period. Scotland Excel said that a price comparison exercise showed annual savings achieved through the framework across local authorities will range between just below 1% up to 15.4%. The average saving will be 8.8%. Its telecare procurement steering group examined a framework agreement offered by the Government Procurement Service for telecare, but felt that it was not ideally suited to meet the needs of Scottish local authorities and decided to run its own procurement. "Technology and telecare products will play an increasing role in promoting such independence and reduce the reliance on traditional services and the costs associated with these," said Scotland Excel. This article is published by Guardian Professional. For weekly updates on news, debate and best practice on public sector IT, join the Guardian Government Computing network here.