PA Consulting Group and Barnet and Southgate College have agreed a partnership to develop the newly launched Centre of Excellence for Technology Enhanced Care (CETEC) into a world class care technology training centre and innovation hub.
The collaboration recognises the role that both the care technology sector and education has to play in training the next generation of health and social care practitioners. The centre will ensure they understand and use care technology solutions to provide better care for those they support.
CETEC is a leading facility of its type, just 20 minutes from central London, and has three main areas of focus:
- Education and training in care technology: Providing training and education support to those people already associated with the health and social care sector or those interested in entering it. The programmes will enable participants to develop a full understanding of care technology applications in care services.
- Living Lab facility: A ‘state of the art’ facility that will be used as a test bed by care technology innovators to showcase their new product and service developments. The living lab is a fully furnished and functional flat equipped with leading edge care technology solutions to support individuals to live more independently within their own home.
- Care technology research evaluations: A facility to carry out individual assessments to support the development, design and testing of new care technology innovation.
PA Consulting brings a wide range of experience of the care sector and is an award winning care technology services provider (through its Argenti partnership with Medvivo and Red Alert). The partnership with Barnet and Southgate College will ensure its students have relevant skills to get jobs in the sector and will enable the college to:
- Collaborate to develop a world class health and care technology training centre for Barnet, London, and beyond. It will incorporate the principles of best practice service delivery from PA’s Argenti care technology service in Hampshire and Barnet.
- Collaborate to develop and implement innovations in care technology and use PA’s expertise to test that new technology in the CETEC.
David Byrne, Principal of Barnet and Southgate College, said: “One of our key aims as a College is to address the lag between the emergence of new technologies and the skills needed to maximise them. By investing in a brand new Centre of Excellence for Technology Enhanced Care facility, Barnet and Southgate College will do this by providing specialist training to both our health and social care students as well as industry leaders, to help enable them to incorporate assisted living, telehealth and telecare into their care pathways.
“I am absolutely delighted that we have announced a strategic partnership with PA Consulting for the next three years, where we’ll work together to further develop our courses in technology enhanced healthcare and telecare skills education training. PA Consulting is a major player in this field and will undoubtedly help Barnet and Southgate College to cement its position as a beacon in telecare training in Barnet, Enfield and the region as a whole. I am very proud to be associated with PA Consulting.”
Robert Turnbull, care technology expert at PA Consulting Group and Barnet’s Argenti Programme Director, added: “This partnership is tremendously exciting. The opportunity to embed care technology in the next generation of health and care practitioners from the outset of their training really does place both organisations firmly in the vanguard of this work. The world class CETEC facility that Barnet and Southgate College has developed is testament to the vision of the leadership team and I am looking forward to working with them to bring the life-changing benefits of care technology to more people.”