Empowering future care workforces: scoping human capabilities to leverage assistive robotics

Cian O'Donovan, Praminda Caleb-Solly, Praveen Kumar, Siabhainn Russell, Linda Sumpter, Robin Williams

Abstract: How and what health and care professionals do will be changed by the use of robotics technologies in their workplaces. This paper reports provisional results of a 12-month scoping project in which we explained to people working in care sectors what emerging robotics and autonomous systems (RAS) in health and social care look like at present and how they are designed to work. With participants such as nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists we explored how RAS might develop in ways that empower professionals and are safe, trustworthy, legal and ethical. Our research shows a diversity of tasks are valued by professionals and a range of human capabilities are required throughout care organisations in order to support them. Our findings have implications for how health and care professionals and operators might develop training programmes that best align the use of emerging RAS with practices of care, and how robotics systems might be responsibly designed to meet the needs of diverse professionals and service users. Today’s professionals told us that in the future they will want to continue doing what they signed up for. Responsible robotics research will ensure that technology enables and empowers them to do this as needed.