More data, same outcomes? Rethinking risk in social care
Guest blog by Dr Thomas Dodd, Director of Strategic Engagement at Tunstall #SocialCareTransformation
Dr Thomas Dodd
Director of Strategic Engagement, Tunstall
Redesigning social care for prevention starts with how we understand risk
Social care is being asked to deliver prevention, enable neighbourhood care, and support NHS reform simultaneously. “Digital” is often positioned as the answer to all three, but too often, it is treated as an add-on: a layer of technology placed on top of existing systems, rather than a catalyst for rethinking how care is organised, delivered, and experienced.
Are we still asking the wrong questions?
Social care remains largely structured around crisis. Support typically escalates after a significant life event, rather than before it. Assessments introduce delay. Referrals fragment responsibility. Carers quietly coordinate care where formal systems fall short.
Digital has, in many cases, reinforced this model. Forms and workflows have been digitised, but decisions and timing remain unchanged. Data is collected, stored, and reported, yet rarely used to trigger early action. Front-line staff are left navigating more steps, more systems, and more screens.
This matters because prevention is now central to policy. Neighbourhood care depends on the ability to detect rising risk and respond quickly. The NHS 10-Year Plan depends on reducing avoidable admissions and delayed discharges. If social care remains reactive, these ambitions will not be realised.
Systems are designed for organisations, not for lives
Risk does not first appear at population level; it emerges in the details of everyday life. A colder home. A missed kettle boil. A carer sounding unusually tired. These signals are small, personal, and easy to miss, until they become crises.
We also misunderstand the role of data. Many digital solutions claim to break silos but instead create new ones. They collect more data than is needed and hold it longer than is useful. Prevention is not about accumulation; it’s about timely interpretation and action. Data should be used in the moment, to inform decisions, then return value to both the system and the individual.
This is the shift from managing cohorts to supporting a cohort of one.
What needs to change?
- Policy should prioritise prevention outcomes and shared accountability, rather than short-lived pilots.
- Commissioning should focus on capability; the ability to sense and respond and not just hours of care or standalone platforms.
- Practice should move from referral and waiting to proactive navigation.
- Culture should trust front-line judgement, supported by clear and consistent rules.
- Technology should work quietly in the background: drawing in data when needed, adding value, and stepping back, rather than creating friction or new repositories.
Practical steps we can take now
- Define clear prevention outcomes at neighbourhood level
Focus on stability and avoiding escalation—fewer falls, fewer carer breakdowns, fewer emergency admissions.
- Agree a shared risk and response playbook
Define what rising risk looks like, who responds, and within what timeframe. Consistency matters more than complexity.
- Enable a shared coordination view of neighbourhood teams
Not another system, but a shared understanding of the person, their context, and their plan, drawing in data when needed and writing back decisions.
- Adopt proactive contact models
Short, structured check-ins, guided by changes in behaviour or environment, can prevent deterioration at low cost.
- Simplify consent and information sharing
Acting early should be the default, not the exception.
What good looks like
Risk is identified as a deviation from what is normal for the individual. Action happens in days, not weeks. Carers are recognised and supported as partners. Telecare and sensors enhance and prioritise human response, rather than replace it. Digital reduces duplication and administrative burden, and safety improves through clear escalation pathways and defined accountability.
Managing risks
Workforce adoption improves when tools simplify work rather than add to it. Data risk is reduced when only relevant information is used, transparently and proportionately.
Governance is strengthened when responsibility for risk and response is explicit.
Who needs to act?
Everyone.
- Government must set clear prevention outcomes and enable consistent information sharing.
- Commissioners must contract for neighbourhood capability and sustained adoption, not point solutions.
- Providers must redesign workflows before digitising them.
- Technology suppliers must build simple, interoperable, device-agnostic tools that integrate on demand.
- VCSE organisations must be embedded within pathways, not added as an afterthought.
Prevention will not be delivered through more data or more systems. It will be delivered when those closest to people, carers, families and front-line staff, can recognise what is changing and act early, together, with confidence.
That requires more than just digital. It requires a different way of seeing risk, and a system designed around it, not around itself.
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Authors
Dr Thomas Dodd
Director of Strategic Engagement, Tunstall
