The UK's social care sector is huge, employing more than 1.5 million people who work in a diverse range of settings including care homes, hospitals, community centres and homeless shelters. We recognise that it is industry-led innovation, across not just technology but also systems and processes, that ensures vital services are provided in an effective and person-centric way to society's most vulnerable individuals.
Here you can find an overview of the work techUK and its members are doing to further this mission, along with a repository of relevant government strategies and legislation.
Latest social care innovation news
Read industry updates, member insights, guest blogs and event round-ups with a focus on social care innovation.
Upcoming events
Health Foundation briefing on public attitudes to virtual wards
Online Market briefing
Regional Tech Spotlight on South West of England: Trends & Opportunities
Bristol and Online Hybrid
Social care innovation podcast
Hear our guests explore the concept of ‘place’ in care, the principles behind it, the impact of COVID-19 on care delivery, prospects for innovation following the introduction of Integrated Care Systems, examples of industry best practice, and where listeners can go to learn more about ‘place’ and innovation in care.
Integrated Care Systems report
techUK has published a new report – Right from the Start: What should Integrated Care Systems prioritise to make digital, data and technology work for them and their populations? - highlighting the key areas in which Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) can make a significant impact in driving progress on the most pressing issues facing the service at the moment: tackling the backlog, addressing health inequalities, and the need to improve patient outcomes and staff experience.
The recommendations focus on:
- Putting the who before the how: helping citizens take control of their health and care
- Putting the why before the what: embedding demand-signalling within each ICS
- Putting outcomes before processes: fostering innovation through procurement
- Prioritising interoperability and data: driving long-term transformation
- Working together: creating an open and transparent environment for collaboration
Member 'Show and Tell' videos
Watch presentations given by our social care members on their work to techUK's Social Care Working Group.
Relevant strategies and legislation
NHS What Good Looks Like (WGLL) framework (published August 2021)
Directed at all NHS leaders, as they work with their system partners, setting out what good looks like at both a system and organisation level. Describes how arrangements across a whole ICS, including all its constituent organisations can support success.
People at the Heart of Care white paper (published December 2021)
Sets out a 10-year vision for adult social care and provides information on funded proposals that DHSC will implement from 2022-2025.
Health and social care integration: joining up care for people, places and populations white paper (published February 2022)
Sets out measures to make integrated health and social care a universal reality for everyone across England regardless of their condition and of where they live.
Health and Care Act 2022 (came into effect in April 2022)
Removes existing competition rules, formalises ICSs as commissioners of local NHS services, and grants the health secretary authority over the health service.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/31/contents/enacted
Draft Standards and Interoperability strategy (published May 2022)
Aims to improve levels of interoperability across the NHS, provides an overview of the challenges and opportunities, and outlines the main foundations for success.
UK Parliament Innovation in adult social care report (published May 2022)
Provides a summary of the types of innovation in the sector and evidence on key barriers to and facilitators of innovation. Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic are presented. The focus is England but examples are included from all four UK nations.
Data saves lives: reshaping health and social care with data policy paper (published June 2022)
Shows how the government will use data to bring benefits to all parts of health and social care – from patients and care users to staff on the frontline and pioneers driving the most cutting-edge research.
Upcoming: The National Strategy for AI in Health and Social Care
The NHS is developing a national strategy for the development, implementation, scaling and monitoring of AI-driven technologies in the UK’s health and adult social care systems.
Upcoming: Draft Health and Care Cyber Strategy
techUK held an exploratory workshop with the NHS Transformation Directorate in July 2022, convening cyber security and social care members, social care providers, Digital Social Care and NCSC colleagues to discuss a potential support offer to care providers.
More information will be provided in the coming months.
Get involved
All techUK's work is led by our members - keep in touch or get involved by joining one of the groups below
Health and Social Care Council
The Council meet regularly to develop and lead the techUK Health and Social Care Programme, bringing focus to our healthcare policy work, and to the programme's activities, representing the wider membership.
Interoperability Working Group
The Interoperability Working Group will work towards achieving the vision set out in NHS England’s 2022 draft standards and interoperability strategy. The group will aim to encourage the adoption of open standards and fluidity of data whilst recognising the commercial needs of members. It will also focus on demonstrating the value of interoperability to NHS senior management and improving the abilities of SMEs to implement interoperability standards.
Healthcare Group
techUK members can keep in touch or get involved in our work by joining this group, and stay up to date with the latest events and opportunities in the health programme.
Social Care Working Group
The Working Group acts a neutral forum for knowledge exchange across the supplier base and for public sector stakeholders to engage with the market. While identifying common challenges and solutions and offering the opportunity to leverage synergies to partner as often an ecosystem approach is needed to solve a problem.
For more information, please contact:
Leontina Postelnicu
Leontina Postelnicu
Leontina joined techUK in March 2020, where she is now heading up the organisation’s Health and Social Care programme. At the moment, she is also completing an MSc in Health Policy at Imperial College London.
A former journalist, Leontina previously worked for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) as an associate editor for its International and Media divisions. There, she covered the EMEA region for Healthcare IT News, MobiHealthNews and HIMSS TV, with a focus on policy and innovation, and contributed to the Women in Health IT newsletter and HIMSS Insights eBook.
Outside of work, she enjoys reading, dancing, travelling and visiting her family in Romania, where she hails from.
- Email:
- [email protected]
Alex Lawrence
Alex Lawrence
Alex joined techUK in July 2021 as Programme Manager for Health and Social Care. Since July 2023 Alex has led the Programme.
Alex formerly worked at Portland Communications, joining as part of their 2019 Graduate Scheme intake. In March 2020 she joined Portland’s Health team, supporting a range of clients in the life sciences industry across both public affairs and strategic communications.
Alex has a degree in History from the University of Cambridge, focussing on Early Modern Europe and material culture. Outside of work she enjoys reading, finding new places to eat, and running.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Phone:
- 07963 501 791
- LinkedIn:
- linkedin.com/in/alex-lawrence-509a8b166
Georgina Maratheftis
Georgina Maratheftis
Georgina is techUK’s Associate Director for Local Public Services
Georgina works with suppliers that are active or looking to break into the market as well as with local public services to create the conditions for meaningful transformation. techUK regularly bring together local public services and supplier community to horizon scan and explore how the technologies of today and tomorrow can help solve some of the most pressing problems our communities face and improve outcomes for our people and places.
Prior to techUK, Georgina worked for a public policy events company where she managed the policy briefing division and was responsible for generating new ideas for events that would add value to the public sector. Georgina worked across a number of portfolios from education, criminal justice, and health but had a particular interest in public sector transformation and technology. Georgina also led on developing relationships across central and local government.
If you’d like to learn more about techUK, or want to get involved, get in touch.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Phone:
- 020 7331 2029
- Twitter:
- @GeorginaMarath
- Website:
- www.techuk.org/
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgina-maratheftis-0a002a102/