Over a quarter of adult care providers – 27% - are not using any technology in the delivery of their services, a government report has revealed.
The concerning findings are revealed in a report on the results of a survey aimed at understanding care technology adoption among adult social care providers and the barriers to more-widespread adoption.
The figures also show that, across all providers, the most-common technology used for care and support was monitoring equipment with sensors, which 43% of respondents used; while digital social care records (DSCRs) and rostering tools were the most-common types of management technologies used.
The image above shows survey respondents by support setting
The voluntary survey was carried out between February and March last year and 1,085 care providers responded, nearly half of which (49%) were small providers supporting 11-50 people.
Almost a quarter (23%) were micro providers supporting 10 people or fewer, while 4% were larger organisations working with more than 200 people. Medium-sized providers (51-200) accounted for 24% of respondents.
Most respondents were providing domiciliary care services (57%), while a third (33%) were residential.
The results show that over a quarter of respondents (27%) reported not using any care technologies to provide care and support.
Of the micro provider respondents, 40% reported not using any care technologies.
The image above shows the percentage of survey respondents using tech for care and support
Across all care technology categories, a higher proportion of respondents from large providers used technology for care and support compared with those from smaller providers.
For example, 64% of respondents from large providers used personal alarms compared with 38% from small providers.
Larger provider respondents were more likely to use care technologies than smaller providers, with the exception of health and wellbeing apps, which were used consistently across provider sizes.
The graph shows the types of care technologies used for care and support by provider size
Like care technologies used to provide care and support, a higher proportion of respondents from large providers also used technology for business management and back-office functions compared with small providers, with 90% of respondents from large care providers using financial accounting software compared with 49% from small providers.
Concerning the use of digital solutions for back-office functions, 73% of respondents used a digital social care record (DSCR).
The survey also aimed to understand the barriers to adoption of care technologies by respondents.
Cost of technology and licensing fees were the most-frequently-cited barriers to adoption, followed by staff training and cyber and data security.
The table shows the perceived barriers to technology adoption in the next five years
When asked about connectivity requirements, at the time of the survey 39% of respondents were unsure whether they would need faster broadband in the next three years.
Of those that did know, most thought they would require faster broadband.
And nearly half of the respondents said their service users organise their own WiFi, while over one-third said their service users have WiFi included in their care plans.
For residential care providers 70% said they had the appropriate infrastructure to allow devices to connect to the internet from all locations within their care homes. Only 14% said they did not have this infrastructure.
It is expected the care technology survey will run annually, creating a data-led picture of the sector as it evolves.
The table shows the perceived support needed to overcome the barriers