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

Abstract

In the United Kingdom 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 mainstream ‘smart’ digital technology use in UK adult social care, this paper examines how these technologies are generating new forms of work and their implications for job quality, arguing the tendency to prioritise technology results in the creation ‘machine babysitters’ and ‘fauxtomatons’.