SCIE report highlights urgent need for leadership and investment in adult social care
Urgent action is needed to scale up innovation in adult social care and meet the growing demands on services, particularly for unpaid carers, according to new insights from the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).
Drawing on work with over 120 local projects funded through the Department of Health and Social Care’s Accelerating Reform Fund (ARF), SCIE launched its report Embracing change: scaling innovation in care in practice earlier this week.
Its findings highlight a rare, extensive practice-based testbed on how innovation can be effectively developed, embedded and scaled within adult social care.
Over 70 per cent of these projects are directly supporting unpaid carers, a group vital to the sustainability of the social care system, but too often left without the help they need. According to Carers Trust, 80 per cent of local unpaid carer services report an increase in unmet need.
The learnings on barriers to and enablers of innovation emerging from SCIE’s work are invaluable for the wider sector, as they provide a clearer understanding of what approaches people use, and what works in practice.
Given the limited evidence and learning on this topic at this scale in adult social care, these findings should be seen as the beginning of a significant journey towards improvement.
The work demonstrates that scalable solutions already exist, but the SCIE states that these need leadership, long-term investment and supportive policy to become business as usual.
It is calling for urgent action on social care reform with immediate solutions needed to deliver for unpaid carers and stabilise the sector.
Kathryn Marsden OBE, SCIE’s Chief Executive, said: “We believe innovation, whether incremental, radical or disruptive, can play a significant role in achieving a better future for people who draw on care and support and their carers.
“Currently, unpaid carers remain under-supported, and a sustainable future for social care depends on embedding innovation in reform. The projects, funded by the ARF, have demonstrated the creativity and commitment present across the sector.
“We now know more than ever what it takes to make innovation work. This programme has given permission to local leaders to think differently and act boldly. The challenge is to support and grow this knowledge across the system by embedding this learning into policy, practice and funding decisions. Innovation cannot be an afterthought. It must be core to how we design a better, more sustainable future for care.”
The report comes during SCIE’s tenth annual Co-production Week (30 June – 4 July 2025), a celebration of the role meaningful collaboration with people who draw on care and support has in designing and developing better ways of doing things in social care.
While the Casey Commission and 10-Year Health Plan may shape the longer-term future of care, SCIE is calling for immediate steps to apply these learnings now, and to ensure innovation is central to a future National Care Service.
SCIE is calling on national leaders to build innovation into policy reform, starting with co-production with people and communities. It also wants to incentivise innovation by taking a multi-year innovation fund approach and funding the infrastructure.
