Andrew Morley, Senior Practice Development Consultant at the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), highlights that embedding co-production is essential for the successful, ethical, and person-centred deployment of assistive technology in adult social care, as it builds trust, enhances outcomes, and supports sustainable, inclusive digital transformation.
The evolving landscape of adult social care (ASC) faces a critical imperative: to embrace digital innovation while remaining deeply person-centred. At the heart of this transformation is the responsible deployment of assistive technology (AT)—a field ripe with promise to foster independence, enhance wellbeing, and relieve pressure on a stretched care system. Yet realising this potential demands more than smart devices or data dashboards. It requires a fundamental cultural shift: embedding co-production as a non-negotiable principle in designing, selecting, and deploying technologies that directly affect people’s lives.
Why co-production matters in assistive technology
Co-production is not a tick-box exercise; it is the shared creation of services and solutions between professionals and people with lived experience. For the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), co-production places individuals and their communities at the centre of decision-making, ensuring that power, responsibility, and insight are balanced to produce better outcomes. When applied to AT, co-production transforms what might otherwise be a transactional introduction of devices into a relational, meaningful process grounded in trust.
AT can sometimes evoke ambivalence. For some, it offers liberation and autonomy; for others, it represents intrusive surveillance, especially when introduced without adequate dialogue. Embedding co-production ensures that these concerns are not sidelined. Through meaningful conversations – particularly around changes to routine or the installation of unfamiliar equipment – services can earn and sustain trust. Without this trust, adoption falters, and opportunities for early intervention, improved safety, and increased independence may slip away.
SCIE’s role: Co-production meets digital maturity
SCIE’s work in supporting digital maturity across ASC reinforces the centrality of co-production in transformation. In collaboration with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Partners in Care and Health (PCH), and sector partners, SCIE engaged with three pathfinder local authorities in 2024/25 to explore how digital tools, data insights, and AT could be better harnessed. This programme surfaced significant opportunities—from expanding the use of AT to reduce service demand, to deploying predictive analytics that enable proactive care planning.
Notably, two participating local authorities identified over £5 million in efficiency savings—largely attributed to insights generated through co-produced conversations with staff, partners, and individuals with lived experience. This underscored how inclusive dialogue can directly shape and sharpen operational strategy.
It also spotlighted core enablers: namely, cultural change and co-designed solutions. Workshops held as part of the programme championed scenarios that could support innovation—such as using AT to monitor high-cost care packages or streamline hospital discharge planning—and emphasised participatory approaches throughout. Rather than imposing technologies top-down, the project promoted trialling pilots that were co-produced, with detailed business planning and performance metrics shared transparently.
Integrating AT into strengths-based practice
Co-production also aligns seamlessly with strengths-based approaches in ASC. AT should not be seen as compensation for deficit but as a support to personal capability and community connection. Integrating data from AT into assessment processes exemplifies this. When behavioural insights—from movement sensors or environmental monitors, for example—are used to inform multidisciplinary team (MDT) reviews, they offer a richer picture of someone’s lived experience. Not to replace professional judgement, but to augment it with timely, often continuous evidence that can trigger early support and flag subtle shifts in well-being.
For instance, aggregated AT data can reveal patterns such as increased night-time wandering, missed medication alerts, or reduced activity—all indicators that may precede more significant care needs. Sharing these insights securely among care teams, family members, and specialists like dementia services ensures interventions can be responsive, joined up, and sensitive to the person’s unique context.
SCIE’s digital maturity findings also highlighted the importance of enhancing communication through AT, particularly for people with a learning disability and autistic people. Co-produced solutions—such as visual schedules, audio prompts, or devices tailored for shared accommodations—demonstrate how AT can be genuinely enabling when designed with, not just for, those who use them.
Building confidence through co-production and digital inclusion
One of the recurrent themes in co-production conversations is emotional readiness. A crisis can bring a sudden need for AT—fall sensors, panic alarms, door monitors—but if these tools are deployed reactively and without prior discussion, they risk alienating users. Co-production must begin before moments of crisis, through accessible education, peer stories, and inclusive materials like simple guides or explainer videos. These build confidence not just in the technology, but in the system delivering it.
Trust is also inextricable from ethics. Data-sharing, consent, and transparency must be built into digital solutions from the outset. Co-production groups have rightly raised concerns about how behavioural data is stored and accessed. Addressing these openly, with GDPR compliance and secure infrastructures, helps ensure residents and professionals can engage with technology on equitable and informed terms.
From pilot to policy: Scaling co-produced innovation
Embedding co-production into organisational frameworks—policies, training, evaluation—is vital for sustaining momentum beyond pilot phases. SCIE advocates developing clear co-production ambitions, mapped governance models, and practical toolkits for co-design, so that implementation becomes structurally supported, not ad hoc. Pilots that focus on real-world challenges (e.g. accelerating discharge, managing domestic violence risk, supporting Continuing Healthcare reviews) offer proof-of-concept for how AT and co-production intersect to address complex care needs.
Equally important is recognising and rewarding the contribution of co-production partners. Fair compensation, visible impact stories, and continual dialogue ensure people with lived experience remain involved, not instrumentalised.
Conclusion: A partnership model for digital ASC
Monday 30 June marked the start of the SCIE’s Co-production Week 2025, a celebration of the power of co-production to design and develop better ways of doing things in social care. The theme, ‘Innovation through co-production’, highlighted the benefits of co-production, shared good practice, stimulated debate, and promoted the contribution of people who use services and carers in developing better social care.
It also highlighted—supporting our findings from our digital maturity projects—that co-production should not sit at the periphery of digital innovation design. It is not a ‘nice to have’: it is the very foundation upon which person-centred digital transformation rests.
As ASC navigates new challenges, from workforce sustainability to increasing complexity of needs, technologies will play an ever-greater role. But whether they empower or alienate depends on the care with which they are introduced.
To find out what went on during Co-production Week 2025, visit the SCIE website: National Co-production Week 2025 – SCIE.
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