Nearly half of providers who responded to a government survey - who said they use technology to provide care and support - use monitoring equipment technology.
More than a quarter (27 per cent) of both residential and domiciliary care providers who responded to a government survey said they don’t use any kind of technology in the services they provide.
Nearly half (43 per cent) of those that said they do use technology said they provide ‘monitoring equipment with sensors’ as part of their services.
The Department for Health and Social Care 2025 Adult Social Care Provider Technology Survey was carried out as part of the government’s ‘Digitising Social Care’ (DiSC) programme to measure against its aim to see all providers fully ‘digitised’ by the end of the current parliamentary term in 2029.
The Department said it defines a fully digitised care provider as a Care Quality Commission (CQC) registered organisation that is using an assured Digital Social Care Record (DSCR) software that meets the ‘standards met’ level on the data security and protection toolkit (DSPT).
The number of providers using DSCR almost doubled from 41 per cent at the end of 2021 to 80 per cent in July 2025, the government said.
Here are the key findings from the Adult Social Care Provider Technology Survey 2025:
Who took part in the survey?
A total of 1,085 care providers across England took part in the carried out by the Department of Health and Social Care in the first half of last year.
The largest group of service manager respondents were from small providers (49 per cent) followed by medium (24 per cent), micro (23 per cent), and large (4 per cent).
A third (33 per cent) were from residential care home settings.
Sensors and Records are the most used tech
The survey found that 73 per cent of providers who responded are now using at least one form of care technology.
The most used tech was ‘monitoring equipment with sensors’ such as fall prevention or acoustic monitoring, used by 43 per cent of respondents.
Adoption of Digital Social Care Records (DSCRs) had jumped to nearly three quarters (73 per cent) of providers at the time of the survey from under half (41 per cent) in late 2021.
Meanwhile the survey found that digital rostering and electronic medicine administration records were the most widely used business management technologies, with just under two thirds (63 per cent) using the former and just over half (53 per cent) using the latter.
Very small care providers are behind on digitisation
Despite the overall upward trend in digitisation, the survey revealed a significant lag among smaller providers. While only 11 per cent of large providers reported using no care technology, that figure jumped to 40 per cent for micro-providers. Larger providers were also significantly more likely to use personal alarms and financial accounting software.
Barriers to tech adoption by care providers
The obstacles to wider adoption of technology are largely financial, according to the survey findings. More than eight in ten (82 per cent) of respondents said they need more funding support for ongoing costs and more than two thirds (67 per cent) called for more help with upfront investments in technology.
Meanwhile a third of residential care providers (33 per cent) who took part in the survey said they anticipate needing faster broadband within the next three years to keep up with technological demands.
