King's College London

On 26 November 2024, the SOcial Care Rapid EvAluation TEam (SOCRATES) held an informative Lunch and Learn webinar, presenting and discussing preliminary findings from Phase 2 of its project ‘Evaluating the Implementation of Digital Social Care Records (DiSCRE)’. Twenty-one delegates from different parts of the sector, including care providers, Integrated Care Boards and the Department of Health and Social Care, attended the event to hear about the potential and challenges of implementing digital records in social care settings. The webinar featured insights into the evaluation process and preliminary findings from the second phase of this project. Presentations by the project team members were followed by a lively discussion with participants.

A recording of the presentations can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXwStH6bdkw

Panel of Speakers

Joanne Westwood, DiSCRE Principal Investigator and Professor of Social Work Education at the University of Central Lancashire, chaired the session and provided the introduction and acknowledged other individuals and parties involved in the project.

Juliette Malley, DiSCRE Principal Investigator and Associate Professorial Research Fellow at the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre (CPEC) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), provided an overview of the study and the rapid evaluation process.

Nicola Farrelly, Research Fellow at the University of Central Lancashire, presented preliminary findings on different features of digital care records.

Nicole Steils, Research Fellow at King’s College London, discussed preliminary findings focussing on recording constraints in the context of care relationships.

Martha Snow, Research Fellow at CPEC, LSE, presented further findings on aspects of equality, diversity and inclusion as well as on how to make social care records work for those receiving care, their care workers and managers and suppliers.

About SOCRATES

SOCRATES (SOcial Care Rapid EvAluation TEam) is a collaborative effort comprising researchers and experts from the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre (CPEC) at LSE, the University of Central Lancashire, and King’s College London. The team was commissioned by the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) to undertake rapid evaluations of service developments and innovations in social care. SOCRATES aims to rapidly evaluate new services and changes in social care for adults and children, providing timely and actionable insights to stakeholders across the sector.

Additional information

Further information on the DiSCRE project and the wider SOCRATES study can be found here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/cpec/socrates