Kent County Council Social Services is revolutionising social care and community health by investing in three ground-breaking electronic services designed to enable people to stay in their own homes and take greater responsibility for their own care.

According to e-Gov monitor the new Telecare package will be launched on Friday 4 March and will be piloted among 275 people across Primary Care Trusts in Kent, with a £1 million cash injection from KCC.

In partnership with US firm Viterion, Kent’s Telehealth element of the package will employ touch screens, video link-up and digital cameras to enable people to self-monitor conditions. So have the days of shuffling along religiously to your friendly GP, ‘who’s such a lovely chap’ gone? Telehealth provides communication with health and social care professionals via hi-tech user-friendly computer based unit through a telephone line to a secure web-based facility… That’s a no then.

Other services to be launched are client cards, electronic ordering and invoicing systems and a self-assessment website for community care. The intention is to increase efficiency in order to free up money to reinvest into front line services.

Leader of Kent County Council Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart said: “These projects, based on the most advanced thinking in Britain and America, are partnerships with the private sector and have the potential to make a national contribution to modernising public services and improving the quality of lives for residents of Kent and beyond.”

It seems it might be good for your health to be IT savvy.