Changing the DNA of Care: how earlier insight can strengthen Scotland’s social care system

Scotland’s social care system is under extraordinary pressure.

Demand is rising. Workforce shortages are chronic. People are living longer with increasingly complex needs. And yet, rightly, we remain committed to supporting people to live independently at home for as long as possible.

The challenge is not a lack of dedication from care professionals. It is that too often they are being asked to operate without the insights needed to intervene early, prioritise effectively, and prevent avoidable crises.

At MySense, we describe this as changing the DNA of care.

It means enabling everyday changes in behaviour to be detected sensitively, notified securely, and acted upon meaningfully, before small issues become major events.

Because in care, timing matters.

Why small changes make a big difference

All of us live by routines. We wake up at roughly the same time. We eat similar meals. We sit in the same chair in the evening. These patterns form a personal baseline.

When those routines shift - missed meals, disrupted sleep, reduced movement -they can be early indicators of declining health or wellbeing.

The difficulty is that these subtle changes often occur between scheduled visits. By the time they are noticed, situations may already have escalated into falls, hospital admissions, or safeguarding concerns.

This is where proactive, in-home insight becomes transformative.

MySense uses discreet, privacy-first sensors and intelligent analytics to turn everyday activity into clear, actionable information, without cameras or intrusion. Adult Social Care teams gain visibility of emerging risk between visits, helping them support safer independence and intervene earlier with evidence rather than assumptions.

Supporting professionals with better insight

Remote monitoring is not about replacing care staff. It is about strengthening the support around them.

Across social care, workforce shortages, higher acuity, and administrative burden are placing sustained pressure on frontline teams. In this context, maintaining visibility of day-to-day wellbeing between visits becomes increasingly challenging.

Objective insight into daily living patterns helps teams:

• Move from reactive to proactive care
• Identify risk earlier and often resolve issues with simple interventions
• Prioritise visits based on real need
• Arrive informed, with context and evidence to support decisions

Instead of starting each visit from scratch, professionals can see trends over time: rest patterns, activity levels, bathroom use, and movement. Optional wearables add fall detection and emergency alerts, while simple dashboards share insight with both professionals and families.

The result is better-informed care reviews, reduced unnecessary escalation, and greater reassurance for everyone involved.

Earlier UK deployments have demonstrated a 61% reduction in hospital admissions through earlier identification of risk, alongside improved prioritisation and increased confidence for families.

Strengthening a fragile ecosystem

Care does not exist in isolation. It spans NHS services, local authority social work teams, independent providers, families, and an increasingly stretched workforce.

Without shared insight, this ecosystem becomes fragile.

When meaningful data flows across these pillars, when changes are detected early and acted on collaboratively, the system becomes more resilient.

Care teams can intervene sooner. Families feel reassured. NHS services experience fewer avoidable admissions. Most importantly, individuals are supported to remain safely at home, with dignity and choice.

This approach also respects privacy and autonomy. Technology should always adapt to people, not the other way around.

From insight to impact

MySense is designed specifically for Adult Social Care workflows, supporting social workers, occupational therapists, managers, and providers with medically assured technology (Class I Medical Device certified). It delivers personalised wellbeing trends over time, helping teams make confident, evidence-based decisions while maintaining a human-centred approach to care.

Insight does not replace care.

It strengthens it.

By embedding early detection into everyday living, services can shift from crisis response to prevention, easing pressure on staff, improving outcomes for individuals, and helping build a more sustainable care system for Scotland.

If we truly want to support independence for longer, we must equip care professionals with the tools to act earlier, not later.

That is how the DNA of care begins to change.

This article is sponsored by MySense.

www.mysense.ai