Proactive Care — What’s it all about? 

As defined by the NHS, proactive care is personalised and coordinated multi-professional support and interventions for people with care needs. It aims to improve health outcomes and patient experience by:

• Enabling early intervention and prevention of behaviours that challenge or mental health concerns.
• Using data-driven insights to create personalised care plans to meet the evolving needs and goals of people with learning disabilities.
• Delaying the onset of health deterioration.
• Maintaining independent living and autonomy in care.
• Reducing avoidable exacerbations of ill health.
• Reducing the use of unplanned care.  

Put simply, it’s a coordinated approach between health, social and community care that detects potential health issues and mitigates them before they become problems. This coordinated approach to care helps individuals with support needs live fuller, more autonomous lives.

In social care settings, proactive care can:

• Save care providers time and money.
• Enhance person-centred care delivery.
• Support independence among service users.
• Reduce pressure on health services by preventing avoidable health decline.

In your care service, day-to-day proactive care might look like:

• Regular assessments to identify potential risks and who might need additional support.
• Using digital care records or predictive analytics to track service users’ health and behaviour trends.
• Behavioural support for people with learning disabilities, using early intervention plans to help manage anxiety or distress, reducing the risk of behaviours that challenge.
• Proactively supporting independence through goal setting for people with learning disabilities to help them gain life skills.
• Fall prevention plans, regular risk assessments and interventions to stop preventable conditions.
• Remote monitoring or care management platforms to detect potential health issues before they escalate.
• Co-produced care plans involving service users and families in decision-making.
• Collaboration with local authorities on long-term care strategies to secure funding for preventative care.
• Ongoing staff training, workshops and resources to continuously improve care delivery.

Currently, health and social care in the UK is mostly reactive - dealing with issues as they arise, rather than mitigating the risk of them happening.  

Years of underfunding have contributed to:

• Chronic staff shortages.
• An over-reliance on hospital beds.
• A population facing avoidable health deterioration.

The social care sector isn’t to blame, having spent years stretching small budgets to capacity and doing its best with limited resources. Before the advent of technology in social care, implementing proactive care measures would have come at a huge financial cost and the funding just wasn’t there.

Thanks to the increasing digitalisation of the sector, care providers now have access to the tools that can shift the landscape of social care in the UK from reactive to proactive. And it might just be what we need to save the sector.

How proactive is your care?

Want to know how proactive (or reactive!) your care is? Take our 3-minute quiz!  

The dangers of reactive care

Reactive care means your service users get the care they need when they need it the most, but it’s a drain on our already limited resources. It leads to higher costs, expensive emergency treatments and increased workload for staff who are spending time responding to crises that could have been avoided.

It also means worse health outcomes for service users as their existing conditions often deteriorate before receiving treatment, reducing life expectancy and quality of life. When health conditions reach crisis point, they result in more ambulance calls, hospital visits and acute care admissions putting additional pressure on healthcare and emergency services.

In learning disability care settings, reactive care can lead to increased incidences of behaviours that challenge as the warning signs of distress or mental health conditions are addressed too late. This detracts from care worker wellbeing, creating an unsafe environment for your team.

A lack of proactive care can also lead to higher care needs for your service users, as their independence isn’t supported by goal setting, hindering their ability to acquire life skills.

Overall, reactive care leads to more stress and less satisfaction for health and social care providers, care workers, service users and their families.  

Reactive care causes:

• Higher costs.
• Increased workload for staff.
• Worse health outcomes for service users.
• Additional strain on health and emergency services.
• More stress for health and care providers, care workers, service users and families.

Delivering person-centred care is what matters most to care providers. But proactive care isn’t just best for the individual, it’s best for the system.

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By working collaboratively to deliver preventative care, we can reduce instances of ill health and support independent living for the people who depend on us the most. It saves stretched care workers time and saves care services money, giving care providers the peace of mind they deserve that they’re delivering truly person-centred care.

Reactive care in practice

Jules, an active 87-year-old who loves her home and lives independently with daily homecare visits, falls in her kitchen one afternoon while making a ham and cheese sandwich. Although Jules is a big part of her community and her neighbours check in regularly, no one is around when she falls. Unable to get up, Jules remains on the floor for several hours until her next care visit.

When the carer arrives, they find Jules in pain and unable to stand, so they call 999. Jules is admitted to hospital with a hip fracture requiring surgery and weeks of rehabilitation.  

After the fall, Jules has reduced mobility and increased care needs. As her independence has declined and she can’t afford additional home care support, Jules makes the difficult decision to give up the home she loves and move into a care home.

What went wrong

• The risk was only identified after Jules fell. No preventative assessments were in place.
• Without a digital care record to spot patterns, the early warning signs of Jules being at risk of falls went unnoticed.
• Delayed response time due to scheduled care visits. Without real-time monitoring, Jules was left on the floor for hours.
• Jules's loss of confidence and independence lead her to withdraw from her community and give up her home.
• Increased care needs post-fall raise costs for the care provider and local authority. With higher support needs, Jules now relies on a more expensive residential care placement. ‍

How it could have gone

During Jules’s initial homecare assessment, her mobility risk is flagged as high. Through a digital care record, carers can easily spot patterns that suggest her mobility is declining. Her home is checked for hazards and her carers help rearrange furniture, install grab rails and add anti-slip flooring.

A digital falls sensor is placed in Jules's home, alerting carers to unusual movements. The care team introduces telecare check-ins so Jules can press an emergency button if she feels unsteady. She is also referred to a community physio to improve her balance and strength while reducing her fall risk.  

What went right

• No ambulance call out or hospital admission, saving thousands in NHS and social care costs.
• Jules maintains her independence, allowing her to continue living safely in the home she loves.
• Better peace of mind for family members, knowing she has fall detection support and rapid response options.
• Reduced pressure on homecare staff who can focus on preventative, high-quality care rather than an emergency response.
• Cost savings for the care provider and local authority, with proactive support, Jules can avoid expensive residential care, reducing long-term costs.