Sector reform
Technology qualifications: another box-ticking exercise?
Sam Hussain, CEO and co-founder of Log my Care, asks whether the government’s introduction of a technology qualification for social care represents the start of meaningful investment in the sector or just another exercise in box-ticking
During April’s National Health Care Service Group Conference, health secretary Wes Streeting unveiled the government’s plan to launch a new social care qualification to equip care leaders with the skills to use and rapidly deploy technology across care homes and other settings. Focusing on technologies that can support people to live independently for longer, the training will cover motion sensors, AI, and video telecare. This announcement comes as part of the government’s 10-year plan to make social care fit for the future, but how much can training help care providers struggling with a lack of resources? While the initiative sounds like the
investment in technology the sector desperately needs, there is a real risk that this surface-level policy will ultimately waste
leaders’ time, erode trust in training and technology, and demoralise staff already under pressure. If the government is serious about
making social care fit for the future it needs to deal with the chronic underfunding, implementation gaps, and policy contradictions it is responsible for. As it stands, this qualification feels like virtue signalling to the already tech-savvy but underfunded care providers keeping the sector alive.
Tech training without tools is just theory Training on technology can be valuable and a viable way to upskill our social care workforce, but it only works when the tools are available and budgeted for. Many care
providers do not yet have the infrastructure or funding to support new technology, and until they do, we are wasting their time by training them on it. Implementing an out-of-touch initiative like this shows that the government is either unaware of or indifferent to care providers’ actual needs. There is also a risk of eroding trust in future training that, delivered at the right time, could really benefit care providers and the people they support. Even in the case of digital social care
records – arguably a flagship example of tech modernisation – over 20 per cent of care providers are still entirely paper-based. If we cannot first support these providers to implement digital care records, how can we expect them to adopt motion sensors and AI? Or do we leave them out of the equation
March 2026
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com 39
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