Liam Palmer: An Interview With Katie Thorn

Click Play To Listen To The Podcast

In this episode, Liam chats with Katie and finds out how life can take you from Medieval Literature graduate, to Project Managing Digital Social Care and working alongside the NHS.

Podcast highlights

1:58 What Is Digital Social Care?

3:57 Katie’s Journey

"And got this job, which was meant to be just a very short six months piece of research looking at social care providers, understandings of what was then called the IG Toolkit and Data Security more broadly. That job extended. We had a snap general election and suddenly that six month job was much longer."

6:08 Milestones

9:16 Reconciling Difference

"I think also what was really helpful is actually rather than saying, "Oh, we all have to be the same or being equal," is understanding the different skillsets that everybody in our team brings to the table. Everyone has a background working in social care at various different levels of expertise with technology."

12:44 Propagating Growth

18:29 Empowerment And Technology

"So, when we can share that learning between us, I feel like people can then be empowered to realize they've made the right decision. And when you go, "I made this decision; I bought this piece of technology and I know it's making a really good difference in my business and to the people who I care for in my support and to my staff."

21:11 Navigating The Options

"If you're thinking about a new rostering system, for example, even though that's quite a specific discrete piece of software. But there are lots of different questions that can come up."

24:14 Importance Of Being A Voice

26:00 Four Key Themes

"A lot of that's around broadband/wifi connectivity, and also 3 and 4G data for people who are working out in the community. We know this is a huge barrier for a lot of people. You might have Internet and a computer that doesn't necessarily mean that you have it in everybody's room in a care home, or if you're in a rural area... I live in Shropshire so I really feel this pain... and you're working out in the community, you may not have mobile signal."

28:49 What Makes It Worthwhile?