AI won’t solve the UK’s social care issues…but it can reduce the burden on time-poor staff

A growing ageing population is going to increase the demand for social care workers beyond levels the UK can realistically meet.

However, as Lucie Glenday, Founder of MySense, explains, transformative new technologies like AI could play a vital role in making social care work more manageable and rewarding.

The adult social care workforce is on the rise once more, following an unprecedented 4% contraction (60,000 workers) between April 2021 and March 2022.

It’s welcome news, but a 1% workforce increase doesn’t mask the difficult truths facing the social care sector today. The gap between demand for care and its supply still stretches to more than 150,000 vacant posts. Current Government funding levels are barely keeping the system afloat. And unless pay and conditions improve, employers will continue to struggle with retention issues, to the detriment of care quality.

Furthermore, as the number of people aged 65 and over grows, Skills for Care estimates that the total number of social care posts will need to increase by more than one third by 2035 to keep up with demand. It’s the stark reality of supporting an ageing population and, if we’re being honest, filling circa 450,000 additional roles over 12 years looks nigh on impossible.

So what can be done? The elderly and most vulnerable members of our society are already paying a high price for the social care worker shortage. Without action, today’s social care crisis could soon become a catastrophe.

The evolution of home monitoring

Better use of technology would be a good start. Specifically, AI technology is now available that, when deployed in the home, can give social care workers better insights into residents’ health and wellbeing and allow them to use their time more effectively.

AI has been the subject of considerable hype since the arrival of ChatGPT, but it’s important to disambiguate between experimental new AI technologies for which use cases are still being developed, versus tried-and-tested AI that is actively deployed across a variety of care scenarios.

For example, more than 200,000 NHS patients have been given home monitoring technology to help predict adverse health conditions, reduce unplanned hospital stays, bring peace of mind to carers and families, support healthcare workers and allow them to live healthily and independently.

Wearable sensors and trackers can monitor a person’s movements, capture environmental data such as temperature and light, and record vital signs such as blood pressure, body temperature, pulse, oxygen saturation, weight and hydration. From a preventative care perspective, home monitoring is already a game-changer.

What the addition of AI brings is radical new depth to the insights that can be achieved via these existing inputs. It’s now possible to build a clear picture of a person’s normal routine – everything from sleep patterns and mobility to personal care and hydration – and track for both immediate and long-term changes.

For example, hydration is understood not just by water from the tap but the entire process of activity levels, heart rate over time and journeys to and from the bathroom. Mobility is understood not just from step count, but by the time taken to transition between activities and the relative strain on the individual. 

AI can alleviate pressure and save money

From a social care perspective, the benefits of using AI-based home-monitoring technologies are three-fold. Firstly, the AI system will automatically alert care workers if there is a significant change or an immediate need for help, ensuring that acute situations are always prioritised.

Against this backdrop, as the technology routinely records all relevant physical health data, social care workers can focus more on the relational side of their role – something that too often gets neglected as there simply isn’t any time left in workers’ schedules. This is fundamental to making social care work more rewarding. 

In addition, AI can help to reduce the pressure on a workforce that is perpetually time-poor and frequently exhausted. Such pressure rarely results in high quality care provision; indeed, it greatly increases the risk of errors and oversight.

The AI technology is simple, intuitive and accessible, perfect for workers who may not be naturally tech savvy. It gives them the insights they need to make better decisions about residents’ health and wellbeing, while enhancing the safety and reliability of ongoing care, so that nothing gets missed.

And there’s one further benefit that greater use of AI-based home monitoring could enable: cost-savings. By reducing unplanned hospital admissions and GP appointments, delivering more effective treatments and maximising workers’ use of time, we can lower the cost of social care provision to a significant degree – money that can potentially be reinvested into growing the workforce itself.

Images: Jason Leung and Alexander Sinn