Your care staff are already better at AI than you think | EP. 15 w/ Katie Thorn

Your care staff are already better at AI than you think | EP. 15 w/ Katie Thorn

Most conversations about AI and the care workforce focus on risk, resistance, and what staff don't know. Katie Thorn, Head of Innovation at Digital Care Hub, makes the opposite argument: care workers already have the skills AI needs most. In this episode, we talk about why communication and empathy are actually an advantage with large language models, the real reason a template AI policy doesn't exist yet, and what the government's "fully digitised by 2029" plan doesn’t go far enough. Katie is also co-founder of the AI and Social Care Alliance – and we cover how that came about, the gender gap in care, job displacement fears, and what frontline workers really think about AI investment. In this episode: 01:06 – What Digital Care Hub does (and what it doesn't) 04:07 – How the AI and Social Care Alliance came about 08:47 – Where to go if you want to get up to speed 10:01 – Communication skills as prompting skills 16:37 – Women are 20% more likely to live in digital poverty – and they're 85% of your workforce 19:00 – What a frontline worker said at the first Alliance roundtable 21:09 – Could AI job losses be a recruitment opportunity for care? 24:09 – Why Digital Care Hub hasn’t published a template AI policy (yet) 27:46 – Making AI governance work at board level 34:31 – What good employer-led AI training actually looks like 37:15 – Katie's background: growing up in a nursing home 40:27 – The expensive lesson from picking the wrong tech system 45:45 – Why "fully digitised by 2029" doesn't go far enough Katie links https://www.digitalcarehub.co.uk/ [https://www.digitalcarehub.co.uk] Podcast: Control Plus Care: https://www.digitalcarehub.co.uk/podcast/ [https://www.digitalcarehub.co.uk/podcast/%C2%A0] AI in Care Alliance: https://aiincarealliance.co.uk/ [https://aiincarealliance.co.uk/] [COMING SOON] David Mance – CPD-certified AI trainer and consultant for the social care sector. Get resources and tutorials: https://aiinsocialcare.com/ [https://aiinsocialcare.com/]

80% of Care Providers Are Small – Here's How They Can Make AI Work For Them | EP. 14 w/ Samir Patel

Small providers make up 80% of the care home market, yet when it comes to technology and AI, they're often the last to get support. In this episode, I sit down with Samir Patel – care home owner, operator, and founder of the Care Home Digi Hive community – to talk about his 20-year journey from paper chaos to practical AI implementation. Samir shares the lightbulb moments that pushed him toward tech, the £25,000 mistake that taught him everything about change management, and why he believes care homes should start with "back office" AI before touching resident data. Whether you're a startup or a large provider, this conversation is packed with hard-won lessons on making technology work without overwhelming your team. Find out more about the Digihive community: https://www.carehomedigihive.com/ [https://www.carehomedigihive.com/] Samir's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samir-patel-07684912/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/samir-patel-07684912/] Samir's podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@iCareServicesUK/featured [https://www.youtube.com/@iCareServicesUK/featured] And on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6KKDdIwu5H9ke3dYOPdfu4?si=34c25c9a3559497a&nd=1&dlsi=c30ae3c960dc4482 [https://open.spotify.com/show/6KKDdIwu5H9ke3dYOPdfu4?si=34c25c9a3559497a&nd=1&dlsi=c30ae3c960dc4482] David's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-mance/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-mance/] AIinSocial Care tutorials, podcast and more: https://aiinsocialcare.com/ [https://aiinsocialcare.com/]

Are We Choosing Care Tech All Wrong? | EP. 13 w/ Paul Shanahan

Most care technology does what it says on the tin. It functions, ticks boxes, completes tasks. But somewhere in the process of evaluating, procuring and implementing tech, something often gets lost – the relationships that make care actually work. In this episode, I speak with Paul Shanahan, a clinical lead and behaviour analyst turned part-time coder, who's been wrestling with this challenge. Paul shares the thinking behind his Relational Care Tool, which is built on real research with service users, carers and care organisations. It helps teams evaluate technology not just on functionality, but on whether it enriches the human experience of care. We also talk about his digital health passport project, which is tackling one of the most frustrating and overlooked problems in care transitions: the outdated, easily lost, 12-page paper document that's supposed to tell a busy A&E team everything they need to know about a person with complex needs. If you've ever sat in a procurement meeting and thought "There must be a better way" then this episode is for you. Connect with Paul on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pjshanahan/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/pjshanahan/] Relational Care custom GPT: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-6984b31aadb08191a86b25d8a40c1afd-tech-for-relational-care [https://chatgpt.com/g/g-6984b31aadb08191a86b25d8a40c1afd-tech-for-relational-care] Listen to more interviews and watch free AI in care tutorials: https://aiinsocialcare.com/ [https://aiinsocialcare.com/]

How One Small Care Group Got AI Right (Without a Tech Team) | EP. 12 w/ Kevin Humphrys

What does it actually take to make AI work in a care setting?   In this episode of AI in Social Care, I sit down with Kevin Humphrys, CEO of Oakland Care Group – a two-home provider that’s quietly doing some of the most thoughtful, practical AI implementation I’ve seen.   No outsourced transformation project. No shiny tools for the sake of it. Just a leadership team willing to start with principles, and adjust the plan as they go.   Here’s what stood out: – They didn’t wait to have it all figured out. They started with 5 rules. – Staff now build their own AI agents – including senior care staff. Not because they were “techy”, but because they saw the value. – Care planning went from 4 hours to 20 minutes – with better oversight, not less. – They spotted bias the hard way – and built systems to catch it next time. – Most importantly: they’re not using AI to cut corners. They’re using it to give staff time back.   If you're in a care leadership role and feel like you're already behind on AI, you're not. But the gap will grow quickly in 2026 – and this episode shows what it looks like to start where you are, with what you’ve got. Resources Kevin's Gen AI Governance template: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yx6CSQe5y0bAuNWx9Ong7mOxdeZXm_U6/view?usp=drive_link [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yx6CSQe5y0bAuNWx9Ong7mOxdeZXm_U6/view?usp=drive_link] 📄 Free starter resources at frankcaremarketing.com   #AIinCare #CareSector #SocialCareLeadership #CarePlanning #SocialCareTech

How AI is optimising home care routes : A Care Provider’s Story | EP. 11 w/ Jonathan McFarlane

What happens when a care provider builds their own AI – not in a lab, but in the real world of rotas, staff sickness, and visit chaos? In this episode of AI in Social Care, I speak with Jonathan McFarlane, founder of Oran Care and now the creator of carevisits.AI – a new solution designed to help home care services tackle one of their biggest operational headaches: coordination. Jonathan shares his journey from music therapy and dementia care to building tech tools. Now, with a sharp focus on visit planning and routing, his team is developing AI to solve the kind of problems that only someone who’s been in the trenches would recognise. – Why care coordination is more complex than people think – Why the user decides how to measure success – How to approach optimising systems (way before getting AI involved) – Why experience in care matters more than clever code If you’ve ever felt the pain of last-minute rota changes, weekend on-call stress, or trying to make sense of three systems that don’t talk to each other, this one’s for you. Check out carevisits.ai 🔗 Find free resources on getting started with AI in care at frankcaremarketing.com David's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-mance/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-mance/] Jonathan's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-mcfarlane-a9b0325a/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-mcfarlane-a9b0325a/] #SocialCare #AIinCare #HomeCare #CareTech #DigitalCare #CareCoordination #AI #FrankCareMarketing #CareVisitsAI #HealthTech #CareSector