Embracing technology to tackle the social care crisis

Dr. Ben Maruthappu, co-Founder of Cera Care, writes about maximising technology in the homecare sector.

We’ve been hearing it for far too long now – the social care sector is in crisis. Age UK has just corroborated this further with numbers in their most recent report, which shows that over 1.5 million older people in England have some unmet need for care and there are more than 100,000 vacancies in the care workforce.

This means that there are tens of thousands of vulnerable, old people who are at risk of being denied basic support, such as help with washing and dressing.

Governments have continued to duck these issues for decades and, yet again, we wait for the new government to tackle this crisis.

But we all know progress can’t be made simply by pointing out what’s going wrong – we need to come up with solutions. The responsibility must be shared across society and we must collaborate to make use of all available skills and resources to come up with innovative solutions that can address this crisis immediately.

It is in this context that I co-founded an organisation that is both a social care provider and a tech company, with the aim of supporting people as they age, as well as their carers.

Cera Care supports carers to go to people’s homes, help get them out of bed, eat, drink, take medication, bathe – supporting older people to live more independently in the comfort of their own homes, as opposed to, going to live in a care home.

We manage to do this efficiently by harnessing technology.

Technology has revolutionised our world over the years and is continuing to do so, yet the social care sector is one that lags behind in its adoption of tech. The opportunities that social care can grasp in the world of technology are enormous and can make a real difference to people who need care as well as those who offer it. At Cera, we use digital and AI to transform the way care services are delivered. It makes us more transparent, efficient, scalable, and improves the quality of the care we offer.

For example, using data to identify those most at risk can help with prevention and early intervention. Cera Care’s, Concern Predictor can predict health concerns and risks, as well as identify the deterioration of health conditions so carers can respond sooner.

The Concern Predictor has already identified 715 cases of increased concern and by using this technology we hope it will reduce pressures on A&E units and NHS hospitals – which can otherwise cause significant strain on an older or vulnerable person, as well as drawing unnecessarily on strapped NHS budgets.

We are also making use of AI-driven, Dynamic Tasks, which has been proven to be 93% accurate at correctly identifying the “next best action” for a visit, which can drastically reduce the risk of key tasks being missed and makes care more consistent. It also shares updates about tasks completed immediately and ensures vital information about developments in an individual’s care are taken into account quickly. This is particularly important where a person is unable to communicate for themselves or may be living with a condition like dementia, and can empower carers with knowledge, particularly when on the move

By making use of cutting-edge technology like the Concern Predictor and Dynamic Tasks, we want to streamline multiple aspects of care-delivery, make carers’ workloads more manageable whilst also increasing the quality of care for older people. If applied across the social care sector, it has the ability to help relieve pressure on the social care system and ultimately, the NHS, that we all know is in critical need.

While technology cannot replace personal contact and care,  implementing it in the right way, can significantly enhance the quality, efficiency and experience of care for both carers as well as those in need of care.

As we wait to see what the next government will draw up, I sincerely hope they place technology at the heart of their social care strategy because the future is bright for technology in social care and now is the time to spring into action for immediate change.