Technology for our ageing community futures: legal perspectives

Older people want to choose the community they belong to, and to preserve their independence.  So, to support them, we need digital technology and data to move with them.

From a legal perspective, bear traps lurk here.  As a provider services for older people, you can manage them, for example with clever buying techniques, contracts and licences, by using high-risk technology (e.g. “pocket IT” and AI) very deliberately and with policy guardrails, and by consulting, and paying serious attention to security and resilience.

Working as we are, at the conjunction of housing, health and care, we’re in a space that is filled with humans, and the machine : human interface needs lots of attention.  It’s a tricky interface that needs to be navigated in a planned, sensitive way.

Case studies in this field are sobering.  Here are a couple of examples.

Some ‘remote electronic eye’ solutions have a bad name because the products were placed into care settings where they don’t fit (or their ‘fit’ is not understood).  The real problem was lack of early consultation and communication, not the products, their relevance or legality (all of which can be managed).  For services based on Internet of Things TEC wearables, devices and sensors, customers really depend on the service continuing without break.  But service will stop unless we have a ‘bridging’ plan and device inventory ready for business ‘freeze’ events (such as insolvency) affecting the care or technology provider who runs the service.

For us to build collaborative support and care pathways in pursuit of the NHS 10 Year Plan (and the likely recommendations of the Casey Review) we also need technology and data to flow between organisations, and even across sector and jurisdictional boundaries. 

There are many headwinds, but collaborative projects can succeed with some creative approaches.  Here are examples.

Keeping initiatives bite-sized and local means you have a manageable number of stakeholders and reasonable consensus, low cost of entry, and lighter scorch-marks on financial, emotional and risk capital if, objectively, the project is best axed.  Collaborative hosting (one collaborator hosts a solution for itself and other collaborators) helps with embedding data-sharing and related operational collaboration on service pathways.  Apps that support multiple user roles provide an elegant and cost-effective route that can have similar benefits. 

However you choose to collaborate, consult with customers, staff and collaborators to identify and work through risks and adverse perceptions.  And watch the data compliance: contracts are often mandatory and always highly appropriate from a commercial perspective, to keep personal data sharing lawful.

As the number of older people increases and they follow their community preferences, you will find gaps in what the technology market offers, and want to plug the gap.  Building, commissioning or funding the development of innovative new solutions is exciting but, a little like a housing development, there’s much that can slip sideways.

Dive in and plug the gap! but cover the bases to avoid disputes or other heartache later on.  Contracts are essential to bolt down the key factors, including asset ownership, permission to use, maintenance responsibility and the total price of ownership.  Security, resilience and user risk management are non-negotiable in this context and they need to be built in from the start.  Not easy.  But our older people rely on us to get this done.

Particularly when you consider what’s involved in developing new technology (and, if you get deeper in, owning, maintaining digital products and services), leaving it to businesses that specialise in such work looks attractive.  There are many ways of catalysing innovation, from supplier user groups to research projects and organised hackathons.

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We were delighted to welcome David to our Annual Conference, Shaping Homes for Health, Independence and Connection, held in Bristol in March 2026. To read the full conference debrief, click here.