Over the next decade the number of older people will increase without there being a corresponding increase in the number of people in employment paying taxes to provide support. More significantly the expectations of older people will rise as the cohort of baby boomers reach retirement age. These people have used modern technology in their daily lives, and realise its potential to make their lives easier.

It has been estimated that the number of people in the UK over 65 years old will double from 1990 to 2050. This could make them a significant block of voters, so policy makers would be unwise to ignore their needs which include appropriate housing and support services.

Smart living involves buildings tailored to the needs of the individual as well as related services such as telecare and local transport information. This will involve a coming together of engineers, architects, builders, communication experts, health care specialists, energy providers and organisations representing disabled and older people to develop a holistic approach to our future housing needs.

It might be useful to know the time when the next bus will reach the bus stop closest to your home to minimise the time waiting in the rain. This information needs to be provided in a form appropriate to the individual (which might be in large characters on a display mounted on the door of the fridge).

Numerous systems have been developed to address the needs of older people, but they have usually been stand-alone systems. There is an unmet need for fully integrated systems with a consistent user interface which can be simply tailored to individual needs. Although this sounds relatively straight forward, we are far from reaching this goal. The present fragmentary approach, particularly on the demand side, is not going to achieve the desired result, so there needs to be a change in policy to achieve a coherent approach.

PhoneAbility have organised a major event on 15 June to address this issue.

Agenda
10:00 – 10:05 Welcome (John Gill, PhoneAbility)
10:05 – 10:30 The Need for Change (Martyn Gilbert, UK3.0)*
10:30 – 11:00 The Unmet Needs (Patrick Roe, Cardiac)

11:00 – 11:30 Coffee break

11:30 – 12:00 Buildings for the Future (Peter Ball, BRE)
12:00 – 12:30 Technological Trends (Brian Collins, Chief Scientific Advisor, DfT & BIS)

12:30 – 1:30 Lunch

1:30 – 2:00 Telemedicine and Telecare (Paul Gee)*
2:00 – 2:30 Usability (Colette Nicolle)
2:30 – 3:00 Implementation: The Key Factors (Kevin Cullen)*

3:00 – 3:30 Tea break

3:30 – 4:15 Panel Discussion
Martyn Gilbert (chair)*
Heinz Wolff
Richard Foggie
Bob Twitchin
Graham Worsley
4:15 – 4:30 Concluding remarks (John Gill)

* To be confirmed

For more information visit the PhoneAbility website