Technology and quality assurance: more than just care plans

At Care England’s Facing the future conference in March, a key theme was ‘technology’. Indeed, two morning speeches and two afternoon seminars were dedicated to the subject.

Introducing and increasing the use of technology in care homes is high on the government’s agenda. The pandemic accelerated the use of technology through necessity: the now-defunct NHSX distributed 11,000 iPads to care homes, helped 14,000 care settings to access NHS Mail, and doubled compliance with the data protection security toolkit to 40 per cent. 

In December 2021, the Government announced £150m of funding to drive digitalisation as part of its People at the Heart of Care: adult social care reform White Paper. Matthew Gould, former CEO of NHSX, told the March conference that this funding and strategy had to be translated into concrete steps of deployment. He said that 57 per cent of providers cited budget as the main barrier to digitisation, while almost half said that they lacked digital skills, adding that we should remember that technology is a means to an end – and that end is providing better care.