National Children and Adult Services Conference (NCASC) 2024: SCIE’s contribution to digital innovation in social care

27 November 2024
By Kathryn Smith, SCIE Chief Executive Officer

The National Children and Adult Services Conference (NCASC) brings together leaders, practitioners, and innovators in health and social care every year. The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) is contributing to this year’s conference by exploring the potential of innovation, especially digital innovation and GenAI, to transform care services and experiences.

The public needs confidence in the quality of social care services, and the sector needs a stronger, safer, and more innovative social care system. The starting point for any innovation should be the people who draw on care and support. As SCIE’s literature review on scaling innovation (2020) showed, co-production must play an essential role in the design of innovative care solutions, whether new models of care or digital technology. By taking an end-to-end digital transformation focus, local areas drive what is required rather than shoehorning in technological solutions to fit. 

As social care leaders continue to face significant cost pressures, GenAI digital innovation offers huge potential for reducing duplication and time spent on administrative tasks, releasing more time for care. With this area of AI rapidly developing, we do need however to increase understanding of the distinct ethical risks and implications of this type of provision in social care – and again, co-production lies at the heart of ensuring the ethical use of AI.

GenAI also supports improved integration of information between health and care systems. Health and social care are interdependent, and without a coordinated approach, people will continue to face under-met and unmet care needs, and family carers will remain overstretched.

GenAI digital tools and methods also have the potential to increase choice, promote independence, support healthier lifestyles, and deliver better outcomes and service user experiences; while building workforce skills, promoting professionalism, and enhancing efficiencies in care work.

SCIE Agilisys partnership

That is why I’m excited that SCIE and Agilisys launched a strategic partnership at NCASC, to support social care organisations to adopt GenAI, working collaboratively to share knowledge, skills and capabilities. Combining the strengths of leading provider of public sector technology solutions Agilisys with not-for-profit SCIE’s strategic expertise and wealth of understanding of the business, ensures the quality and safety of practice, allowing us to tailor solutions that bring the greatest impact for local areas.

Together, we feel passionately about the importance of improving social care choices through digital technology so that those delivering care can adopt digital best practice confidently, supporting adults and children to lead the life they choose, as independently as possible.

As GenAI tools proliferate, the partnership between SCIE and Agilisys will support the ethical application of AI products within social care.

Our workshops

This year at NCASC, we hosted two workshops picking up on the themes above and designed to empower partners in local and central government, voluntary organisations, and the private sector with practical tools, information, and strategies.

Thursday 28 November, 14:20 – Strategic change and strengths-based approaches: Co-production every step of the way.

This session explored how co-production can underpin reform more broadly, through sustainable, strengths-based approaches in social care. By involving people with lived experience, their carers, and their families at every stage—from design to delivery—services can become more responsive and effective.

Friday 29 November, 10:45 – Accelerating Reform Fund: How to enable innovation in social care.

Innovation is key to addressing systemic challenges in social care. This session delved into strategies for fostering innovation and explores practical examples of success, giving an overview of a range of digital and wider innovations taking place in the projects funded by the Department of Health and Social Care’s ARF across the country.

The Fund is the first such to specifically focus on innovation in social care, and unpaid carers, and I’m keen to stress the importance of this being set up as a learning programme. It is through SCIE, and national evaluation partner Ipsos, capturing the learnings of both success and failure, what the barriers are in practice and how to overcome them, that we can truly ensure stronger, better future social care innovation. Naturally our role in galvanising co-production and ensuring projects are supported to do this well, is key to ensuring that people who need care, and unpaid carers, are at the heart of the programme. We’re also focusing on convening local authorities into communities of practice, so that they can benefit from valuable shared learnings, peer support and expert insights across the country.

Other new partnerships

This July, we launched a new partnership with Partners in Care and Health, the Local Government Association (LGA), and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), delivering a new programme of sector-led improvement support for adult social care and public health services in councils.

Visit our main NCASC 2024 page for all updates and further information on digital innovation and advice.

NCASC hub