CEN/TC431 – service chain processes for technology enabled care

The firm focus is on the users; ensuring them an improved level of quality of life by enabling the users to stay longer in their own homes, remain independent and be able to participate actively in society. CEN/TC 431 achieves this by working with all interconnected parts in the entire service chain for social care alarms. All parts in the service chain are equally important.

CEN431 development is being led by the Swedish Institution for Standards (SIS) with representation from other EU countries.

The latest development meeting took place in Brussels in February. Over the two days comments and feedback from a number of countries including in the UK, France and Holland were discussed and incorporated in to the next planned draft of the standard.

Key Performance Indicators were discussed and SIS agreed to collate KPIs from the known current standards from participating countries in to the next version. 

The group agreed that for now, these would be placed into an informative annex as anonymised information for the group members to consider. The idea being that if group members thought that some of these should be normative, they could be included in the standard proper.

It was agreed to send out the proposals for Introduction and Annex for KPI examples for commenting among the meeting participants for 2 weeks for consideration.

Currently, the standard is classed as a preliminary work item. Once the Item is triggered into an active work item, there is a set timeline for completion of around 8 months. At the February meeting, it was agreed that this active work item would be activated, but without the introduction and annex mentioned above, as these would need to be agreed by the full working group going forward.

A ballot will be open for 8 weeks for full consultation and final vote on signing off the standard. SIS and all the participants will encourage non-participative countries to vote favourably on approval and application of CEN/TC431.

A meeting date of the 15th May has been proposed for a workshop in Brussels to consider the next phase in more detail. The suggestion is that each national body holds a local workshop to gather information on possible content. 

There was general support for an additional work item, with a number of subjects mentioned including GPS tracking applications, Apps, Control Centre Technologies and IoT devices. 

It is TSA’s intentions to align the new standard with our Quality Standard Framework and we will keep members up to date with progress and dates for any consultation processes required.

For further information on CEN/TS431 please visit the European Committee for Standardization