Technology in care systems: Displacing, reshaping, reinstating or degrading roles?

Abstract

In the United Kingdom and further afield, policy discourse has focused on the efficiencies technology will afford the care sector by increasing workforce capacity at a time when there are recruitment and retention issues. Previous research has explored the impact of telecare and other technologies on roles within the care sector, but issues related to job quality and the consequences of newer digital technologies that are increasingly being deployed in care settings are under researched. Through an exploration of the literature on robotics and empirical studies of telecare and mainstream ‘smart’ digital technology use in UK adult social care, this paper examines how these technologies are generating new forms of work and their implications for job quality, arguing the tendency to prioritise technology results in the creation ‘machine babysitters’ and ‘fauxtomatons’.

Sustainable Social Care: The Potential of Mainstream “Smart” Technologies

“…However, this limits their potential to contribute to wellbeing and other outcomes, including, paradoxically, economic sustainability. We heard from our experts about local authorities that had taken a "tech-first" approach, purchasing relatively affordable devices without full consideration of the wider costs required for the wraparound services to support their use, which in turn led to the "failure" of the technologies [29]. As studies that have drawn on STS to explore first-and secondgeneration TECS have underscored, the services associated with these devices-assessment, installation, monitoring, response-enable technologies to "care".…”

“…Since the 2000s, technology has been presented by policy discourse in England as one way to address particular challenges to adult social care [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. In a sector facing issues related to workforce recruitment and retention, policymakers have repeatedly argued that using technology in adult social care will increase capacity [29]; recently, the current Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Sajid Javid [28], cited examples of where technology had freed up " [t]ime that could be spent on patient care". Reflecting on the economic aspect of sustainability [Appendix A, note 1], many local authority directors of adult social care services view technology as a means to contain costs, with 92% of those surveyed in 2021 viewing assistive and communications technologies as "quite" or "very" important in making savings [30] and two-thirds making additional investments in digital and technology as part of a broader approach to economic sustainability (only 1% were disinvesting).…”

Innovation in UK independent homecare services: A thematic narrative review

“…Technology in ASC has also been a key area of policy focus and public investment, often coupled-or at times treated as synonymous with-innovation. Policymakers have frequently pronounced technology's 'transformational' potential, with innovations in both the design of new products and systems or the application of existing devices to caring contexts cited as having the ability to increase care quality and workforce capacity whilst reducing costs (Hamblin, 2022)…”

“…Technology in ASC has also been a key area of policy focus and public investment, often coupled—or at times treated as synonymous with—innovation. Policymakers have frequently pronounced technology's ‘transformational’ potential, with innovations in both the design of new products and systems or the application of existing devices to caring contexts cited as having the ability to increase care quality and workforce capacity whilst reducing costs (Hamblin, 2022 ). Investment has included the Care and Health Improvement Programme's Social Care Digital Innovation Programme and NHS Digital's Digital Social Care Demonstrator Programme, both of which provided funding for localities to develop digital ASC pilots with stakeholders, including care providers.…”

The Value of Netnography for Research in HRD

“…Netnography can generate valuable data sources that prompt problematization or re-categorization of established concepts to better describe HRD-related phenomena, issues, or problems in contemporary digital or platform environments (see, for example, Patrick-Thomson & Kranert, 2021). In addition, studies carried out using Netnography may identify anomalies or tensions between established theoretical assumptions and propositions and provide opportunities for mapping of relationships and interactions in specific digital contexts (see for example Hamblin (2022) study of the potential of technology for care workers and care patients). In this way, Netnography provides opportunities to achieve greater clarity about boundary contexts in theorisation of digital and work spaces, for example, establishing patterns of change in relationships between workers, organizations and communication structures over time (see, also, Schoneboom’s (2011) analysis of work blogging).…”