Digital social care update from the Care Inspectorate

Happy new year from the digital social care team! 

As we begin 2026, we are excited to share updates and opportunities to support your digital social care journey. This year, our focus is on building confidence and capability in digital social care together.

Upcoming webinar, 22 January 2026 

Join us for our first webinar of the year at 10:00 on 22 January 2026, focusing on digital skills for the social care sector. 

We will hear from: 

• Paula Baird, NHS Education for Scotland (NES), who will introduce the Organisational dashboard, a platform to review insights from the Digital and Data Capability Framework Self-Assessment Tool.  

• George Burton, SSSC, who will discuss their ongoing work to support workforce skills development in digital technology. 

• Our team will introduce our new self-evaluation tool, Embedding a rights-based approach to digital social care.  

Register for the webinar here.  

Launch of the digital social care self-evaluation toolkit 

We are delighted to introduce the digital self-evaluation toolkit, designed to help services assess their digital capabilities and identify areas for improvement. This practical tool is now available on our Hub page. 

Want to learn more? Join our upcoming webinar, where we will explore the toolkit in detail and share tips for using it effectively. In the meantime, you can watch a bite-size introduction video here.

Annual return insights 

In partnership with the Care Inspectorate’s intelligence team, we analysed responses to digital technology questions in the 2024 annual return. These insights highlight sector trends and opportunities for improvement.

We found that there has been a rise in digital leads within care services, specialists who champion the use of technology to improve care, empower staff, and enhance outcomes for people who use services which is promising for the sector.

See our annual return findings for 2024. 

Launch of the Digital Care Collaborative Scotland (DCCS)

We are excited to share that the Digital Care Collaborative Scotland (DCCS) has officially launched. This initiative, led by the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI), brings together partners from across health and social care to drive innovation and collaboration in digital solutions. 

The collaborative aims to accelerate the adoption of technologies that improve outcomes for people and services, creating opportunities for shared learning and co-design. 

Find out more and get involved by visiting the DHI Innovation Cluster page and watch our webinar, Enabling digital innovation in social care and social work, recorded in October 2025. 

Share your success stories 

We would love to hear from you! Do you have great examples of how digital approaches are improving people’s outcomes in practice? Share your experiences by completing this short form. 

Your stories will help inspire others and showcase the impact of digital innovation. 

Best wishes,