Katie Thorn: Investment in the care sector is critical to tackling the NHS’s biggest challenges
Technology has the power to transform social care, but are providers and patients ready? That’s one of the questions that Katie Thorn, project lead at the Digital Care Hub, will tackle in her session at Rewired 2025. We caught up with her before Rewired to understand the current state of technological readiness in the care sector – and what can be done to accelerate innovation.
What do you think are the biggest challenges facing the care sector, and how can technology help to tackle them?
Fundamentally the two biggest challenges facing adult social care are funding and workforce shortages.
According to Skills for Care data, there’s a current workforce shortage of 131,000 posts. To continue to deliver for patients, there will be a need for an additional 540,000 posts by 2040.
We can also see that the care sector faces a significant funding gap estimated to be over £8bn. This is impacting the financial sustainability of the sector, which is predominantly made up of small- and medium-size or organisations.
Both of these things are impacting digitisation in the care sector. A recent Care Provider Alliance survey found that 75% of respondents said that they planned to “reduce or stop digital transformation” in response to budgetary pressures in during 2024-25.
How can digital tech and the smart use of data transform lives and reduce pressures on the care system?
There are significant opportunities in the better use of digital tech and data across health and care.
There’s a huge variety of medical devices, specialist care tech and consumer technologies already being used to support people to live independently at home for longer. Increasingly, these technologies are also being used to spot early signs of deterioration to support more preventative treatments which keeps people well for longer – reducing their need to visit primary and secondary care or increase their care needs.
It can have a real tangible impact, too. For example, the introduction of digital care social care records has been shown in one study to reduce admin time by a massive 30-50%.
When technology is used this way, it means more time can be spent delivering care. But this doesn’t necessarily mean technology will enable providers to reduce the number of staff, but that it frees staff up to spend more time delivering direct care and support to patients.
Much attention has focused on primary and secondary care in the digital transformation, but you could argue that social care has been ignored. Why?
I wouldn’t say that social care has been ignored. Between 2021-2025 the Digitising Social Care programme has put £150 million into digital transformation in the adult social care sector. That has massively increased the use of digital social care records (the EPR equivalent) from 40% of the sector to nearly 80%.
That’s no mean feat. We have also seen significant mass adoption of other technologies and rapid increase in data protection and cyber roles in the sector.
However, it is fair to say that social care (meaning front line care provision, not local authorities) is often forgotten when it comes to the wider digital agenda in health and care.
It is rare for care organisations to be involved in shared care records programmes – particularly domiciliary care organisations and those which support working age adults.
What’s holding back digital innovation in the sector?
(The care sector) is dwarfed in terms of the scale of investment which is seen in primary and secondary care.
There are several reasons for this, but a core one is that the majority of adult social care is delivered by the independent sector and the funding routes are a complicated mixture of self-funders, NHS and local authority funding.
Another key reason is that social care is poorly understood in general. We see this played out in the media and government, both of which often says that social care is in crisis but rarely engage with a national conversation about the ways this could be resolved as it’s too politically difficult.
In a toss-up between the NHS in crisis and social care, the weight of public opinion will always mean that the NHS – and hospitals in particular – will be prioritised. Of course, the NHS needs funding, but many of the hot button issues facing the NHS – – waiting lists, hospital discharge – can only be resolved by also supporting the social care sector.
Digital transformation across both health AND care is going to be fundamental in addressing these issues.
What are you looking forward to at Rewired 2025?
I’m particularly interested in attending “Digital care records: a vision for citizen-centred care”. The potential of the NHS App to become a digital front door is fascinating.
Katie Thorn, project lead at the Digital Care Hub, will participate in a fascinating session on how NHS staff perceive AI and its implications for their work (March 18, 15:00–15:45). Thorn will outline the Oxford statement on generative AI in adult social care and examine what this means for care staff and providers.
Rewired is free for those in the NHS and public sector. Private sector tickets from: £495 +VAT. Register now and book your accommodation early to secure the best rates. Register today.
