Digital care should change lives, not just record them

New sector-led report sets out what digital excellence should look like for working-age adult social care and calls for coordinated action from providers, commissioners, regulators and digital supply partners

A coalition of organisations from across adult social care has come together to set out a shared direction for digital excellence in services supporting working-age adults.

Digital excellence in care for working age adults will be formally launched on Thursday 8 October at the Care Show in Birmingham, where Peter Kinsey, Chair of both the Digital Excellence in Care Steering Group and Iris Care Group, will be joined by Lord Hunt for the launch session.

Developed as a joint initiative of the Digital Excellence in Care (DEC) group, Care England, Digital Care Hub and VODG, with Nourish Care and Sona as key contributors and sponsors, the report brings together provider experience and wider consultation. Learning Disability England gathered views from people supported and families, reinforcing the importance of accessible information, choice and human connection.

The report starts from a simple principle: digital transformation should be judged not by how much technology is deployed, but by whether it improves people’s lives, strengthens quality and safety, supports the workforce and makes care more sustainable.

It argues that digital excellence must move beyond replacing paper records with digital systems. Providers increasingly operate across multiple technologies, commissioner requirements and health and care interfaces, while information may be entered several times or repeatedly reformatted for different organisations.

Digital excellence therefore depends on data, technology and interoperability working together so that relevant information can move safely and meaningfully around the person, reduce unnecessary duplication and support better decisions.

It is the first of a kind sector-led framework for working-age adult social care introducing priorities together as TIDES: Transformation, Impact, Delivery, Engagement and Standardisation, and covers eight connected areas: Families; People we support; Finance; Commissioning; People (the workforce); Regulatory assurance; Estates; and Quality & improvement whilst including a four-tier Social Care Data Maturity Model, practical current- and future-state examples, and tools providers can use in planning, procurement and supplier review.

The framework recognises that providers are at different stages of their digital journey. The maturity model is an orientation tool rather than an accreditation standard, and the requirements are intended as a starting point for thinking rather than a universal technical specification.

 

A whole-system challenge

A central finding of the work is that care providers cannot create digital excellence alone.

Commissioners, local authorities, NHS partners, regulators, national bodies and digital supply partners all influence whether information can be shared effectively and whether technology reduces or increases the administrative burden on care organisations.

The report therefore calls for coordinated action across the system:

• For care providers, this means reviewing maturity by domain, identifying the problems that matter most, strengthening data ownership and governance, and investing in staff and leadership confidence alongside technology.
• For commissioners and NHS partners, it means reducing unnecessary variation in reporting, supporting two-way information flows, recognising digital capability as part of modern care delivery and co-designing shared outcomes and investment approaches.
• For regulators and national bodies, it means making proportionate use of trusted provider-held digital evidence and helping remove structural barriers that individual providers cannot solve alone.
• For digital supply partners, it means enabling interoperability, data access and portability, supporting recognised standards and avoiding commercial models that make necessary integration or data access prohibitively expensive.
• Raising expectations of digital supply partners

The report includes a digital supply partner charter and provider-facing checklist, setting out what providers should be able to expect from organisations supplying digital technology and services to social care.

The charter covers people-first design, open and documented access to provider data, interoperability by default, portability and fair exit, system leadership, and fair and transparent commercial models. Providers are encouraged to use the charter and checklist in procurement, contracting and supplier review.

 

From report to implementation

The publication is intended to mark the start of the next phase of the work rather than its conclusion. An Easy Read version will be published alongside the main report so that the work is more accessible to people supported.

Following launch, DEC proposes to develop a data-use library and a practical roadmap giving providers more detailed implementation guidance. The group also intends to monitor the impact of the report and continue involving people supported and families as the work develops alongside producing a version for older people services.

 

Peter Kinsey, Chair of Iris Care Group and Chair of the Digital Excellence in Care Steering Group, said:

“This work began with a straightforward question: what should digital excellence actually look like for working-age adult social care? The answer cannot simply be more technology or another system. It must be technology and data that work around the person, support the workforce and help organisations deliver better care.

 

What has also become very clear is that providers cannot achieve this alone. Commissioners, regulators, health partners and digital supply partners all have a part to play. This report gives the sector a shared direction; the next task is turning that ambition into practical change.”

 

 

Professor Martin Green OBE, Chief Executive of Care England, said:

“Social care needs digital systems that support people and the workforce rather than creating new layers of administration and duplication.

 

Digital excellence is not about replacing paper with screens. It is about using information intelligently, connecting systems around the person and ensuring that providers can access and use the data they create.

 

This work provides an important opportunity for the whole system to agree what good looks like and to work together to make it achievable.”

 

The report and Easy Read version are available here:

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS REPORT