How the pandemic is speeding up the digital transformation of housing services

Instead of furloughing staff, Yorkshire Housing reallocated many of them to provide intensive customer support, including help through the Universal Credit application process – something many residents are dealing with for the first time.

Although a lot of the assistance the landlord provides is offered digitally, Mr Atkin says the technology itself is “a by-product” of the housing association’s continuity planning: “It’s about adapting these things to what is useful and to what people want to use.”

For other landlords, particularly those with even larger proportions of older residents, the challenge has been making the technology available and usable. A part of that challenge has been identifying which residents might be in most need.

Anchor Hanover, the UK’s largest provider of specialist housing for older people, estimates that a significant proportion of its residents outside of its care homes could be living alone.

Many of these will be self-isolating and cut off from their normal support networks, as Anna Clewlow, customer involvement manager at Anchor Hanover, recognises.

“The majority of people are OK,” she tells Inside Housing. “But there are a set of people who are struggling to get supplies and who are feeling isolated. There are people who slip through the net and those are the people we have to contact.”

Luckily, an attempt to engage residents with the digital world was already under way at the 54,000-home association. Part-funded by insurance group Aviva, the ‘Stay Connected’ digital inclusion project is designed to help residents maintain contact with family and friends while in isolation.

“The project is about trying to demonstrate the benefits of older people becoming digitally connected,” explains Ms Clewlow. Since the scheme started in 2018, around 750 residents have been involved and around 100 tablet devices have been deployed.

Since being given an iPad, Sanctuary Care resident Muriel Buniak has been able to call her loved ones

When the reality of the coronavirus-enforced lockdown became apparent, demand “went through the roof”, according to Ms Clewlow. In the first two weeks of April, 250 tablets went out to customers. Another 200 devices are on order and there is a growing waiting list.

“Our issue now is that we have more demand,” adds Ms Clewlow. “I would guess there’s a lot bigger demand than we are really tapping into.”

Anchor Hanover is supplementing the £100,000 of funding it received from Aviva with its own community grant fund – which is drawn from bequests from its care home residents – to extend the scheme.

“This will change the way we offer services to customers, and their expectations of us will change, too”

Nick Atkin, chief executive, Yorkshire Housing

And, like Yorkshire Housing, it has been creative with its own resources by repositioning a large number of staff who may otherwise have been furloughed.

Some of its staff now volunteer on a Skype-based ‘befriending’ service. Since the outbreak started, the landlord has also launched its telephone-led ‘Be Supportive’ service and has moved its engagement groups – which had previously been conducted face to face – online via Zoom.

Scottish-based specialist provider Blackwood has also ramped up some of its pre-existing digital innovations in response to the crisis. Although the provider’s ‘CleverCogs’ care system – a bespoke digital hub tailored to a resident’s individual needs – was launched in 2015, its use has spiked in recent weeks.

Support workers, such as Mayowa Olanrtewajy, work with as many as 15 residents to make sure that each CleverCogs unit is set up so that users can easily make calls to friends or family.

“People feel much more settled if they are able to talk to their loved ones,” he says.