Home First: How the new Labour government can use technology to protect social care

A year on from the 75th anniversary of the founding of Britain’s National Health Service, the Labour Government has once again underlined its proposals to create something along similar lines for adult social care.

One of Labour’s five driving missions is to build an NHS fit for the future, an ambition which has. social care reform is at its heart.

This includes a principle of ‘home first’ care that supports people to live independently for as long as possible.”

In his first speech as Health Secretary to the Labour Party Conference, Wes Streeting stated his belief that the healthcare of the future will be “more predictive, more preventative and more personalised than ever before” and that making it a reality would requiring “new technologies at scale”.  We agree.

Recently, Stephen Kinnock, the new Minister of State for Care, wrote to the chief executives of all local authorities and directors of adult social services in England (Scotland and Wales have devolved responsibility for these services).

In the letter, the Minister said he looked forward to working with “local government and the adult social care sector as we embark upon an ambitious long-term programme of reform with a view to creating a National Care Service”.

Kinnock added that one of the key pillars for both the short and long-term vision of social care is “a ‘home first’ approach that supports people to live independently for as long as possible”. This is important for both quality of life and to keep costs down.

In the most recent year for which data is available, the total cost of adult social care in England was £28.4 billion and the number of people seeking social care support has been steadily increasing year-on-year, exceeding 2 million in 2022/23. 

The system is under huge strain. For a National Care Service to be a success, it must include an assisted-living component or risk collapse.

Technology will be the enabler for this home-first approach to social care. Canary Care is already spearheading this. We provide our smart technology to more than 100 local authorities, NHS organisations and care providers to support families.

The most commonly used tech in assisted-living settings today, such as wearable pendants, is becoming outdated in the face of new innovations. Canary Care uses a sophisticated yet easy-to-install and use package of technology to monitor the activity of vulnerable people in their own homes, including bathroom visits, sleep, temperature and visitors to the home. Unlike some intrusive systems, Canary Care does not use microphones or cameras, giving people dignity and privacy in their own homes.

Easy access through a web portal means people are able to leave hospital, reducing the number of blocked beds, and live in an assisted way in their own home for as long as possible.

The Canary Care system helps ease the pressure on finite public resources, saving hundreds of thousands every year.

But don’t just take our word for the benefits.

The Local Government Association (LGA) believes that investing more in supported accommodation, like the independent, assisted living enabled by Canary Care, could yield significant savings to the public purse. The association has published a series of case studies ahead of the Autumn Budget including a scheme in Bradford that showed savings of £47,000 per person savings to the NHS.

The LGA is calling on the Labour government to use the Autumn Budget to review how they fund supported housing and consider a specific housing support fund so that long term investments can be made by councils and savings can be made across the public sector. It says that previous analysis has suggested that investing £1.6 billion in supported housing would have savings of over £3.4 billion.

Given our proven track record, we are in a prime position to help local authorities deliver on these potential savings.

Social care is certainly close to breaking point due to increasing demand. Yet we show on a daily basis just how money can be well spent. As the new Government considers how to implement its proposed National Care Service, Canary Care is happy to contribute findings from our own successful implementations.