A new website for a new digital age in adult social care

There are a lot of exciting changes happening behind the scenes of the Digital Social Care website.  The site was first launched in 2019 by NHS Digital (now part of NHS England). The aim was to assess and support digital innovation within adult social care. It’s always been funded by NHS England and is currently run and managed on our behalf through our contract with the Digital Social Care consortium. It’s clear however that with more and more happening to digitally transform adult social care a new improved site is needed.

The digitising social care programme team in NHS England has worked in close partnership with the Digital Social Care consortium to procure a new platform for a brand new website.  The new site will reflect the progress that has been made towards digital transformation since the original Digital Social Care site was built as well as the opportunities now available to the sector.

There are lots of ways that the new site will differ from the current one. For a start, it will be a lot easier to find your way around the site and find the info you need.  It will be assessed before it goes live to confirm it complies with Government Digital Services guidelines to ensure it is usable and accessible for everyone.

We’ve been reviewing all of the content and information on the current Digital Social Care site in order to make sure it’s still relevant and making plans to move anything that should be on another site.  We’re also ensuring it’s written in plain English and is accessible to everyone.

The site name and branding will also change.  Our new site will be called Digitising Social Care to reflect the programme of work both offline and online that we’re undertaking to support the digital transformation of the sector.  It will have the green CARE branding so that people can instantly recognise that they are seeing content from a trusted government source.

One thing that won’t change however will be the way we work in close partnership with the sector to share content via the site.  We’ve formed an editorial team which includes members of the Digital Social Care consortium (who are currently contracted to be the subject matter experts for the Digital Social Care site) together with members of the digitising social care programme and colleagues representing DHSC’s wider programmes in the sector.  This team will be tasked with making sure that we’re publishing information and content that’s relevant for the sector so that the site is a hub of relevant and essential information and support to help you, wherever you are on your digital journey.

What next?

We’re going to share regular updates on the Digital Social Care site on our progress.  The next step for our team will be to pass the beta assessment of the new site.  Once this happens work will begin to move over to the new digitising social care site.

This will take place gradually and you will still be able to see this site while we do it. Once we are ready to go into what’s called the public beta phase you will find you’re redirected to the new site. The Digital Social Care site and brand will then be retired and will be fully replaced by the digitising social care site.

All of the content you currently access on the Digital Social Care website will be on the new site but you’ll find it a lot easier to navigate and there’ll also be lots of useful new info to support you too. You will also have the option to receive a new digitising social care newsletter for regular site updates.

Keep an eye out on this page for regular updates on our progress and if you have any questions or would like to become involved in helping us test the new site please get in touch at england.adultsocialcare@nhs.net