Assisted living goes big in DALLAS

The government’s Technology Strategy Board has launched an application process for the biggest ever assisted living programme in the UK.

The DALLAS programme – Delivering Assisted Living Lifestyles At Scale – will set up between three and five communities, covering a minimum of 10,000 patients, to move the delivery of assisted living technologies from pilot to the mainstream.

The TSB has now opened a ‘competition’ for the £23m programme and expects between 200 and 300 applications to take part in the four year project.

Graham Worsley, lead technologist for the TSB’s Assisted Living Innovation Platform, told a meeting at the King’s Fund this week that DALLAS would mark the next stage in evidence for assisted living.

He added: “There’s been more pilots in this space than British Airways. What we need to do now is drive forward at scale.”

Worsley said that unlike the WSD programme, which is due to report this year, the DALLAS programme would not be a randomised controlled trial.

He said: “We want to move to what we think is the next order of magnitude. If we think the WSDs were in the order of the low thousands what we need to do is 10,000 plus per DALLAS community. It’s not about demonstration it’s about delivery.”

The board and the DH have invested £18m in the project and the Scottish Government has added another £5m. Worsley said one of the five communities would be in Scotland.

He said the aim of the programme was to demonstrate on a large scale the benefits of innovative technology in helping the elderly or unwell to live independently.

As such, he said it would move beyond the long term conditions that were the focus of the WSD project to look at wellness, health and wellbeing and social factors.

Worsley said the ALIP had already been working on making assistive living technology cheaper, better and more desirable and had commissioned research on the business model for assistive living that is coming to fruition.

Worsley said all types of organisations including public, private and third sector would be encouraged to apply for the competition for contracts.

Registrations have to be made by 20 July and initial applications completed by 27 July. These will be followed by workshops and a selection process that will be completed in April next year.

Competition document: 

http://www.innovateuk.org/_assets/0511/sbri_comp_dallas.pdf