From snapshots to certainty: using intelligent monitoring to right-size care and speed up safe discharge

Across Local Authority Adult Social Care, operational teams are being asked to make high-stakes decisions at pace. Discharge pathways must move quickly. Reablement needs to demonstrate progress. Assessment teams must balance risk, independence and finite budgets.

Yet most decisions are still made using short visits and self-reporting — snapshots of a person’s day rather than a full picture of how they are actually managing at home.

Canary Care was designed to close that gap.

Using discreet, privacy-respecting in-home sensors — with no cameras, microphones or wearables — the system builds a continuous picture of daily routines. Movement around the home, sleep patterns, kitchen use, bathroom visits and en67ironmental factors such as temperature all combine to provide objective, time-stamped evidence of how someone is really managing between visits.

For operational teams, that means fewer assumptions and more confidence.

Assessment: Moving Beyond the Snapshot

Assessment periods are often constrained by time and incomplete information. A single visit can miss gradual decline, fluctuating routines or risks that only emerge overnight.

With Canary Care in place during assessment, teams can observe patterns over days and weeks. Is the individual consistently preparing meals? Are they showering regularly? Has night-time restlessness increased? Are they leaving the property less often?

This extended view helps practitioners right-size care packages with greater accuracy. It reduces the tendency towards conservative over-commissioning “just in case”, while also protecting against under-provision where deterioration might otherwise go unnoticed.

For operational managers, that translates into more defensible commissioning decisions — backed by objective data rather than anecdote.

Discharge to Assess: Supporting Safe Flow

Delayed transfers of care remain a system pressure across health and social care. Once someone returns home, visibility reduces sharply. Teams must trust that the support in place is sufficient — and act quickly if it isn’t.

Canary Care strengthens Discharge to Assess pathways by providing early insight into how someone is settling back at home. A sudden reduction in movement, disrupted sleep, or changes in bathroom use can prompt earlier intervention. Conversely, stable patterns provide reassurance that the discharge plan is working.

Rather than waiting for a crisis, operational teams can prioritise visits and resources based on emerging evidence.

This improves safety and reduces the likelihood of delayed discharges and readmissions, giving practitioners greater confidence in stepping individuals through the pathway.

Reablement: Evidencing Progress and Stepping Down with Confidence

Reablement services are designed to rebuild independence. But demonstrating improvement — and knowing when to step down support — can be challenging.

Objective daily data provides clarity. Increasing activity levels, regular routines and improved night-time rest all offer measurable indicators of progress. Where patterns plateau or decline, teams can adjust support quickly.

The result is a clearer pathway to tapering care packages appropriately. Support is maintained where needed — but not longer than necessary. In a system where resources are finite, this ability to deploy support proportionately is critical.

A New Portal Designed for Operational Use

The latest Canary Care portal, launching soon alongside new improved Canary Care hardware, has been developed with frontline teams in mind - reducing manual data interpretation and making insight easier to share.

Exportable Reporting allows practitioners to generate clear PDF summaries of activity and environmental trends. These can be shared with families, carers and multidisciplinary teams, providing a transparent evidence base for reviews and commissioning decisions.

Weekly Averages present meaningful snapshots of wellbeing over time. Average sleep duration, frequency of showers or time spent out of the property help teams spot gradual change that might otherwise be missed — and provide context alongside alerts.

The new Daily Diary creates a straightforward, chronological summary of the day’s activity, enabling quick interpretation during reviews without having to analyse raw data.

And improved, more flexible Triggers — previously known as Rules — allow alerts to be tailored more precisely to individual circumstances, ensuring teams focus on significant change rather than noise.

Together, these features save time, reduce manual data crunching and make insight accessible at the point of decision. Crucially, they strengthen confidence in commissioning choices by grounding them in objective evidence.

A Practical Example

Following hospital discharge after a fall, one individual was supported through a Discharge to Assess pathway with Canary Care in place. Early data showed regular kitchen use and consistent sleep patterns, but reduced daytime movement compared to pre-admission levels.

This allowed the team to maintain short-term support while focusing reablement input on mobility within the home. Within weeks, activity levels increased and stabilised. Objective evidence supported a step-down in visit frequency, freeing capacity for others waiting in the pathway — without increasing risk.

Making Better Use of Finite Resources

Operational teams are under pressure to do more with less — while maintaining safety and independence.

By providing a continuous, objective view of life at home, Canary Care supports safer discharge, more confident assessment and proportionate reablement. It reduces uncertainty, minimises avoidable over-commissioning and helps ensure that care is delivered at the right level, at the right time.

In a system where every decision carries weight, having evidence that reflects the other 23 hours of the day can make all the difference.