Social care faces deep and systemic challenges. The Health and Social Care Committee’s inquiry Adult Social Care Reform: The Cost of Inaction, described it as ‘broken’, highlighting soaring levels of unmet need, unsustainable costs for individuals, providers and local authorities and mounting pressure on the workforce and unpaid carers. Public dissatisfaction with social care reflects this instability. According to The King’s Fund and The Nuffield Trust’s Public Satisfaction with the NHS and Social Care in 2024, half of respondents were either ‘very’ or ‘quite’ dissatisfied with social care for people who cannot look after themselves because of illness, disability or old age.
This evidence makes clear that the system needs radical, transformative reform. While sustained investment from central Government to local authorities is essential, creating a social care system that can respond to changing needs, pressures and expectations will also depend on finding more effective and efficient ways to deliver care and support – and this is essential while we remain waiting for proper investment. We must adapt established approaches and embrace new ones – or risk falling ever shorter of what is required to meet people’s needs safely, effectively and with dignity.
In this context, innovation must be understood as a commitment to learning and continuous improvement, as well as an opportunity to deliver better care cost efficiently. It requires creating the conditions – cultural, financial and structural – that allow new ideas and models to be tested, shared and scaled. This is why SCIE’s Co-Production Week 2025, themed ‘Innovation through Co-Production’, is such a timely call to action. It is an opportunity to show that lasting change emerges not just from ideas but from collaboration, where people who use services, carers, frontline staff and communities come together to shape solutions from the ground up.
Why innovation must be co-produced
Innovation must be more than new apps or digital tools. It must mean systemic learning, adaptation and improvement. To be effective, innovation must be designed and delivered with the people it affects, through co-production that ensures change is grounded in real-life experiences. Yet, across the sector, innovation faces two major barriers.
The first is the sector’s resource constraints. The ADASS 2024 Autumn Survey found that four out of five councils were expected to overspend on adult social care in the 2024/25 financial year, while 35% were being asked to make significant savings. These increasing budgetary pressures are often forcing councils to prioritise acute care and crisis management over innovation. In this sense, we are stuck in a vicious cycle: the innovations that could alleviate pressure in the sector are not being implemented because of the pressure in the sector.
The second is the risk of misaligned solutions. Particularly with digital tools, there is concern that efficiency gains may come at the cost of person-centred care. Innovations that prioritise automation or cost savings risk alienating those who need tailored, compassionate support and can reinforce or exacerbate digital divides. There are also risks related to ethics and equity, particularly when innovations rely on sensitive, personal data or on the individuals they are designed to support possessing certain resources or skills.
Co-production directly addresses both these risks. By designing solutions alongside the people who use them, innovation becomes more likely to succeed, more likely to scale and more likely to deliver, both socially and economically. Specifically, it creates a feedback loop that allows for continuous learning and adaptation. There are powerful examples of co-production driving innovation emerging all over the country. Co-production is reshaping local services to better reflect community needs; it is designing digital tools that support independence and dignity; and it is transforming workforce training to ensure care professionals have the skills they need to provide person-centred, strengths-based support.
Learning from the Accelerating Reform Fund (ARF) projects
The Department of Health and Social Care’s ARF was a £42.6m initiative designed to boost the quality and accessibility of adult social care by supporting innovation and scaling. SCIE is providing hands-on support to the local projects funded by the ARF, ensuring they benefit from shared learnings, peer support and expert insights. Crucially, co-production was a requirement of all ARF projects, covering 149 local authorities across 42 Integrated Care System areas. Each project had to demonstrate how people drawing on care and support were actively involved in design and delivery.
Beyond the original funding stream, the projects are a testbed for future care and support models. Their delivery lessons and the insights SCIE and evaluation partner Ipsos have captured are highly relevant to this Government’s ‘Plan for Change’, as well as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care’s three shifts (from hospital to community, sickness to prevention and analogue to digital). With the Casey Commission not due to publish its final report until 2028, immediate solutions are necessary to stabilise the sector – these projects are delivering learning to solutions that can be deployed now.
Digital innovation
Several projects are developing digital tools but always with co-production as the foundation. Warwickshire, for example, has piloted Brain in Hand, an app designed to support people who are diagnosed with, or waiting for an assessment for, autism and ADHD, helping them to manage day-to-day challenges more independently. Developed with user input, the tool enhances independence while avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach.
In Peterborough, the Bridgit AI chatbot, developed by the Caring Together Charity in partnership with local councils, supports unpaid carers by providing them with immediate access to personalised information and advice. It draws on trusted sources such as the NHS, Age UK and Carers UK to answer questions and concerns, and enhances, rather than replaces, face-to-face support. These projects embody the shift from analogue to digital with person-centredness and equity as guiding principles.
Community innovation
Not all ARF innovation is technology focused. Many projects show how community-based support and local partnership approaches can deliver high-impact, preventative support. For example, Westmorland and Furness have dedicated their grant to recruiting for the Shared Lives scheme, which matches adults or young people requiring long-term support with local volunteers. These examples show how innovation rooted in relationships and local assets can achieve outcomes that technology alone cannot – improving wellbeing, building resilience and reducing the demand on crisis services.
Upstream support and prevention
Prevention is a common thread across the projects, helping people to maintain independence, avoid crises that could lead to long-term care needs and ultimately live well. The economic case for such investment is equally compelling: the Time to Act Reform Board’s 2024 publication, Earlier Action and Support: The Case for Prevention in Adult Social Care and Beyond, shows that, for every £1 spent on early intervention and preventative support, there is an average return on investment of £3.17.
As part of the ARF, Lincolnshire is implementing a programme of arts, heritage and nature activities designed to enhance the wellbeing of unpaid carers, with nature playing a central role. This initiative is embedded in the shift from sickness to prevention by providing carers with structured opportunities for respite and self-care, ultimately reducing reliance on health and social care services. Integrating nature and arts into care provision fosters resilience, reduces isolation and empowers carers with sustainable tools for wellbeing.
Another example is Worcestershire’s hospital discharge pilot. The pilot, based in the stroke unit of a local hospital, identifies carers early, guides them through the discharge process and ensures they are connected to the right support through a dedicated Hospital Discharge Carers Adviser. As part of the initiative, 60 technology-enabled care kits – featuring tools such as emergency buttons and falls detectors – have also been allocated to help unpaid carers feel more confident at home, improve safety and reduce the risk of hospital readmission.
Co-production driving integration
Another critical lesson from the projects is that co-production develops innovations that are not only person-centred but system aware. When innovation is grounded in co-production, it is more likely to reflect the full complexity of people’s lives and, therefore, recognise and respond to the interconnected reality of care – shaping solutions that cut across traditional service boundaries. Co-produced innovation, therefore, not only holds the potential to improve social care but also to spot and solve systematic pain points, like poor hospital discharge processes or gaps in local support.
A national opportunity
This is why SCIE’s Co-Production Week 2025 matters so much. Each year, we celebrate the impact of co-production in health and social care. But this year, under the theme ‘Innovation through Co-Production’, we are also presenting a platform for national learning: by bringing together policymakers, practitioners and those with lived experience, we aim to uncover new insights into how co-production fuels innovation in social care. From 30th June to 4th July 2025, SCIE will be hosting conferences, workshops and live discussions to celebrate the achievements of co-production, share insights and experiences from across the sector, and foster new collaborations. The energy and evidence emerging from the 122 projects across the country will play a key role in informing these conversations.
It is difficult to imagine an effective system given the current challenges. However, the work happening in the ARF projects and beyond shows that, when co-production is embedded, innovation flourishes. As the Casey Commission shapes the future National Care Service, and as Government continues to pursue its Plan for Change, it is vital that co-production remains at the front and centre of reform. Innovation cannot be effective if it is removed from the realities of people’s experiences of care and support. Through Co-Production Week 2025, we have an opportunity to make this case loudly and clearly.
How has your organisation engaged in co-production? Leave a comment on this feature or join the conversation to share your thoughts.
Kathryn Smith OBE is Chief Executive at the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).
Email: [email protected] X: @SCIE_socialcare