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

Abstract

In the UK 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 digital mainstream technology use in UK adult social care, this presentation will examine how these technologies are generating new forms of work and their implications for job quality, arguing the tendency to prioritise technology results in the degradation of work in the care sector.

Speaker biography

Dr Kate Hamblin is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Research on Care, Labour and Equalities, University of Sheffield. Her research has focused on technology and its role in the care of adults with complex needs; the balance between unpaid care and paid employment; self-employment and ageing; and ‘active ageing’ employment and pension policies. She worked on the Sustainable Care research programme, leading a project exploring the role of technology in adult social care.

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