Need for social work lens on increasing use of technology in social care
A sensor in the hallway. A falls alarm beside the bed. A medication prompt on the kitchen table. A monitoring app on a relative’s phone.
Digital care technologies are becoming part of support at home. Used well, they can help people live with greater safety, connection and control.
For social workers, the question is how to ensure technology supports the person’s life, relationships and rights.
As more care is delivered in homes and communities, digital tools are used to monitor, support and coordinate everyday care. This creates opportunities for earlier conversations and more responsive support.
It also means evidence needs to show whether technologies work well for people in the circumstances of their lives, not only in general terms.
Technology and context
In social work practice, context matters. The same technology may support independence in one household but not be so good in another. A telecare alert is not simply a technical event: its value depends on who receives it, who responds, and what they understand about the person at the other end.
Does the technology fit the person’s wishes, strengths, relationships and circumstances? Does it support choice and control? Does it keep responsibilities visible and supported, and make concerns about loneliness, coercion or neglect easier to notice?
Professional curiosity
Digital systems can help services notice patterns of movement, medication use, contact or non-engagement. Used well, they may support earlier conversations and better coordinated care.
But data has limits. A missed alert might reflect a technical issue, a delayed response, preference, exclusion, fluctuating capacity, anxiety, poverty or another person’s influence in the home.
Not every irregular pattern is a safeguarding concern. But technology works best alongside professional curiosity: who is involved, who is absent, whose account is being heard, and can the person express their wishes freely?
Research in English local authorities shows this complexity. Carers often respond to alerts, maintain equipment and interpret what is happening, yet this role is under-recognised.
One carer described being contacted when an alert went off, rather than the monitoring centre sending response staff: “They kept ringing me… that’s the service you’re paid to do.”
Making responsibilities visible helps make care safer. If technology depends on a family member, carer or provider to respond, that responsibility needs to be clear, agreed and supported.
Keeping people visible, safe and heard
Safeguarding and patient safety are not the same thing, but in community care they can overlap. Missed contact, deterioration or repeated non-engagement may point to a system problem, unmet need, rights issue or safeguarding concern.
Technology can make some signals more visible, but it can also be deliberately misused to monitor, restrict or control someone.
A social work lens can keep the person in view: consent, outcomes, relationships in the home, and what should happen if technology fails, use stops, or data tells only part of the story.
This is not about expecting every social worker to become a technology expert. Existing guidance already frames digital practice around judgement, ethics, safeguarding, relationship-based practice and people’s rights.
Linking practice questions to evidence
NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) is adapting its Evidence Standards Framework for digital health technologies for adult social care. The aim is to support commissioners, providers and technology developers with clearer, proportionate expectations across safety, effectiveness, wellbeing, autonomy, dignity, safeguarding, implementation and everyday life.
The framework can help identify what makes technology work well in real life: whose outcomes count, who carries responsibility, how risk is understood, what support surrounds the technology, and whether people who draw on care remain visible and heard.
Questions for social work
In assessment, care planning, review and safeguarding, the questions remain practical:
- What does the person want from this technology?
- Does it support their rights and outcomes?
- How will consent, capacity and changing circumstances be reviewed?
- How will coercion, technology-facilitated abuse, neglect or digital exclusion be noticed?
For commissioners, leaders and evaluators:
- What problem is the technology meant to solve, and who defined it?
- Who receives information, who responds, and what support do they have?
- Does the evidence show that the technology helps people live more safely and well?
Digital care should help people live with greater safety, connection and control. Social work can help keep the person visible, heard and supported.
What social work can add
Evidence for digital care technologies needs to show more than whether a product functions as intended. It needs to show how technology affects choice, control, relationships, safety, dignity and the everyday realities of care at home.
As the adaptation of the Evidence Standards Framework develops, social workers have an important role in asking the practice questions that determine whether digital care genuinely works for people’s lives.
Dr Louise Sims is a social worker and social care advisor for NICE