News
Intelligent house for care at home launched in West Brom
28 April 2008
An intelligent house designed for sustainable and assisted living for
the elderly, chronically ill and disabled will be launched in West
Bromwich on Thursday, 1 May by industry specialists Medilink West
Midlands.
Iain Gray, Chief Executive for the Technology Strategy Board (TSB)
will officially open the i-House, a unique technology demonstrator in
West Bromwich, in the English midlands. To prove that the technology can
work in real housing situations, a traditional Victorian terraced house
has been refurbished using intelligent healthcare technology and
access-focused building design concepts.
Built on the key principles of cost-efficiency and sustainability,
the i-House includes specialist insulation and ventilation, automated
lighting and heating to maximise energy efficiency. It also features
level, keyless entry with widened doorways, helping visually impaired
residents to access the house, as well as hands-free and scald-free taps
and a master control computer to monitor activity in the house to ensure
the wellbeing of the resident. It will even turn the taps off if they
are left running.
The aim of the home, created with the help of partners from health
and social care, housing associations, industry and people living with
physical or sensory impairments, is to help participating companies
refine, improve and develop their technologies while raising awareness
amongst health service providers and create demand from the public. The
i-House has been refurbished with support from West Bromwich Building
Society, Sandwell PCT, Urban Living and Black Country Housing.
Rob Chesters, i-Health network manager for Medilink West Midlands,
said: “While the Government is ensuring that new houses will be built to
become lifetime homes, capable of accommodating technology to assist
living in the future, the i-House addresses more immediate needs,
retro-fitted, scaleable solutions.
“As a high profile element of the i-Health initiative, it will also
ensure that more innovation and new product development is focused on
assisted living in the future, to meet the needs of the aging
population.”
Currently there are 17.5million people living with chronic conditions
in the UK and recent estimates published by the Department of Health
state that by 2030, incidences of chronic disease in the over 65’s will
more than double. The Government has recently announced its national
strategy for housing: ‘Lifetime Homes, Lifetime Neighbourhoods’ and the
UK charity Help the Aged is backing plans for new lifetime homes
standards.
Against this backdrop, a YouGov survey was commissioned by i-Health
in June 2007, which revealed that 87% of people said they wanted to
remain in their own home after retirement, with less than 1% wanting to
live in a care home. With this clear public backing for assisted living,
the i-House will showcase technology for monitoring and accessibility,
as well as memory aids and safety devices that will be vital to enable
people to stay independent.
The West Midlands is fast becoming a ‘centre of excellence’ through
the ground-breaking efforts of Medilink West Midlands’ i-Health
initiative, which focuses on promoting the role of partnership, best
practice and modern technology to support independent living. i-Health
enables designers, manufacturers and health specialists to work together
to produce cost effective and user-friendly solutions to the looming
crisis of the UK’s aging population.
Christina Keey-Andersen, Medical Technologies Cluster Manager,
Advantage West Midlands commented: “Intelligent health is an area of
huge potential for our regional industry to develop new products for a
rapidly emerging market. The i-House marks a great step forward in the
future delivery of healthcare and this is the first time that healthcare
specialists, local authorities and businesses across the UK can see and
learn from the techniques and technologies in development. Then we can
all begin to invest in sustainable, lifetime housing for our aging
generation.”
Rob Chesters added: “The West Midlands is known for its world-leading
products for assisted living, its forward-thinking health authorities
and its active housing associations. It’s ideally placed to develop
existing and future solutions for the UK through an innovation
partnership. i-Health has the collaborative framework to make it
happen.”
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