It was when he heard wheezing on the microphone as he called out the bingo numbers that David Haslam decided to give up cigarettes – but unfortunately it was just the first sign of what was to come.
Twenty years later, the 67-year-old Liverpudlian was making the journey to his local A&E ward every six to eight weeks to try to deal with the effects of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which left him breathless, tired and constantly coughing.
Eager to find an alternative to trekking to the hospital regularly, he embraced new technology installed in his home that avoids the need for him to travel.
Every morning, he checks his blood pressure, weight and oxygen levels in his sitting room using scales and a sensor attached to his finger, which then send the details via Wi-Fi to a monitoring centre through a device attached to his TV.
If something is amiss with the readings, either he or a community nurse is called.
"I stopped phoning for the ambulance because I knew exactly what my blood and oxygen levels were. I have not been to the A&E for about six months," he said.
Haslam is one of the champions of a new push to show how technology can help in social care under a scheme called Dallas – delivering assisted living lifestyles at scale – which was funded by the Technology Strategy Board, the government's innovation arm.
Four groups across Britain have been given £25m of government money with the aim of getting 170,000 people involved by next summer in using technology – some of it very simple – to help them as they get older.
Dave Horsfield, who is part of an NHS group that commissions health services in Liverpool, said: "A lot of the people don't realise that the technology is there; it has been there for years. People either don't know it exists or don't understand it in the same context as we present it."
Last year, Mi Smarthouse opened at the Museum of Liverpool. The walk-through installation brings together technology that can be used to help people in their home, and demonstrates some of the gadgetry that is available to them.
It includes a single-cup kettle that avoids the need to pick up a jug full of boiling water, and a simple device costing less than £10 that can stop the bathroom floor from flooding.
On a recent visit to London on tour with the Smarthouse, Horsfield showed groups of people around the makeshift home, opening the front door with a handle that unlocks using a fingerprint scanner, and revealing a kitchen with an induction hob (safer to use as they cool down quickly) and a radio with a plastic cover fitted over it so that when the single button is pressed it turns on, avoiding confusion from various dials.
While many of the items on display, such as safes for spare keys and the hobs, are readily available, Horsfield said people needed to realise the potential of these gadgets to help with their everyday lives before they would buy them.
"The technology is there, but it should not be a badge of disability, it should not be a badge of needing help. A lot of us use technology as a lifestyle aid and that is the way that technology should be seen – in the background, assisting us in everyday life, and making life easier generally," he said.
An example is the fingerprint scanner for door handles, which would be suitable for someone with Parkinson's disease who may struggle with keys, he said. "How many people would come up and say they knew they could get a fingerprint lock for their front door?"
Lights that switch on when someone gets out of bed rely on relatively simple technology, but an older person from a generation that balks at the idea of wasting electricity may not have thought of them as a way to stop falls, said Horsfield.
Simpler devices, such as buttons with pictures on them that emit a recorded message such as "cup of tea", can help those who are unable to speak, while a medication dispenser has slots for pills that open at a programmed time.
In the bedroom, an occupancy sensor can tell when you are in bed, and an epilepsy sensor sends an alarm at the first signs of a fit.
These can be connected to a phone line in the home which can alert a call centre, whose staff then call whoever is needed, whether it is the next door neighbour or the fire brigade.
At the centre of the Smarthouse is the device that has given Haslam such relief in the past few months: a telehealth system attached to the TV that monitors vital signs. The technology can now be prescribed by GPs in the Liverpool area on the NHS, said Horsfield.
Introducing the technologies – some of which can be rented – alleviates the pressure on overworked hospitals and saves on future medical bills, he claims.
Millions of pounds are spent on ambulance crews dealing with falls every year, with further costs added if the patient requires fracture or dehydration treatment.
Dr Maurice Smith, who has been a GP in the Garston district of Liverpool for 22 years, said the technology also gave patients confidence about managing their conditions from home.
He said: "We know in Liverpool that we have a problem with high usage of A&E services [and] emergency admissions. One of the reasons, we think, is that people wait until they think they are ill enough to need help, and people are not always good at deciding when they need help. So some people will wait quite late until they ring up.
"By that time it is too late and, with the best will in the world, you can't save them from going into hospital.
"We want to be able to put systems in place which will be able to monitor high-risk patients and alert before they get to a critical scenario where a hospital admission is not only inevitable but is appropriate."
