England's care sector passed the government's 80 per cent digital care records target in July 2025, sixteen months after the original deadline of March 2024. The Department of Health and Social Care's latest quarterly statistics, published 4 June 2026, put adoption at 83.7 per cent of CQC-registered provider locations as of March 2026, which leaves roughly one location in six still running care records on paper. This article sets out what the official record shows, and then what the remaining providers actually need to know as buyers: what the NHS assured solutions list is, what funding exists in 2026, where the Care Quality Commission stands, what suppliers charge, and the selection questions that DHSC-funded research says separate a good purchase from buyer regret.
What happened to the 80 per cent target
The target was public and specific, and it was reached late. The People at the Heart of Care white paper (December 2021) committed to 80 per cent of CQC-registered adult social care providers having a digital social care record (DSCR) by March 2024, and DHSC's A Plan for Digital Health and Social Care (June 2022) repeated the commitment. The NIHR-funded rapid evaluation of DSCR implementation, published in Health and Social Care Delivery Research in 2026, records that the deadline was subsequently extended to March 2025. The sector crossed 80 per cent in July 2025 - sixteen months after the original date and four months after the extended one.
The trajectory, from DHSC's own official statistics, runs like this. Adoption stood at 41 per cent in December 2021, when the Digitising Social Care (DiSC) programme began. It reached 76.8 per cent by March 2025, 80 per cent in July 2025, and 83.7 per cent of provider locations by March 2026. Measured by people rather than locations, 92.0 per cent of those receiving care from CQC-registered providers were covered by a digital record in March 2026, and a further 8.5 per cent of locations reported being in the process of implementing one. The figures are self-reported, mainly through the CQC provider information return, and DHSC notes the implementation figure comes from a non-mandatory Capacity Tracker question. The next quarterly release is due on 3 September 2026.
The target has also moved. The government's stated ambition is now that all care providers are "fully digitised" by the end of this Parliament, and DHSC defines a fully digitised provider precisely: a CQC-registered provider using an assured DSCR solution and meeting the "standards met" level on the Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT). Both halves of that definition matter to a buyer, and both are covered below.
What a digital record changes on a care shift
A digital social care record replaces the paper care plan, daily notes, body maps and medication charts with structured records staff update on a phone or tablet as they work. DHSC's survey report describes the practical case plainly: digital records let providers share up-to-date information more easily and securely, and reduce time spent on administrative tasks. The NIHR rapid evaluation, which interviewed 30 senior leaders and 30 care staff across 30 providers, found that where implementation went well, digital records saved time and delivered other benefits over the paper systems they replaced.
Four capabilities do most of the work. Electronic medicine administration records (eMAR) put medication rounds on screen with a prompt and an audit trail; 53 per cent of providers surveyed by DHSC in early 2025 already used eMAR. Inspection evidence comes second: digital records are timestamped, legible and retrievable on demand, which matters when the CQC asks for them (more on the regulator's position below). Third, records from an assured system can connect to NHS data through GP Connect, giving care staff sight of medications and allergies without phoning the surgery. Fourth, most systems offer family portals or apps, so relatives see updates without calling the home. None of this requires digitisation of anything else in the business first; the DHSC survey found DSCRs were already the single most common business management technology in the sector, used by 73 per cent of respondents at the time of the survey, ahead of digital rostering at 63 per cent.
Who is still on paper, and what stops them
The remaining non-adopters are disproportionately the smallest providers, and the barriers they report are cost, skills and connectivity, in that order. DHSC's 2025 adult social care provider technology survey, answered by 1,085 providers in February and March 2025 and published on 6 March 2026, found that 27 per cent of respondents used no care technologies at all to deliver care and support. Among micro providers, those supporting ten or fewer people, the figure was 40 per cent. On digital records specifically, adoption climbs steadily with size: 57 per cent of micro providers used a DSCR, against 77 per cent of small, 79 per cent of medium and 88 per cent of large providers.
The barriers named in DHSC's own survey are concrete:
| Barrier to adopting care technology | Share of respondents |
|---|---|
| Set-up cost of the technology | 73% |
| Ongoing licence cost | 70% |
| Staff training costs and high staff turnover | 52% |
| Cost of cyber and data security | 41% |
| Availability of good internet connectivity | 40% |
| Lack of digital skills among staff | 39% |
Asked what would help, 82 per cent wanted funding support for ongoing costs and 67 per cent for upfront costs, with upskilling of the workforce third at 58 per cent.
Connectivity deserves its own line, because a care record system that staff cannot reach from the far wing of the building is a paper system with extra steps. Among residential providers, 14 per cent told DHSC they did not have the infrastructure to let devices connect to the internet from all locations within their care homes, and among large providers one-third lacked full coverage. DHSC cautions that the survey was voluntary and should not be read as a precise census of the whole sector, but the pattern is consistent across every question: the smaller the provider, the less technology in use and the higher the cost barriers loom.
What the assured solutions list means, and what it does not
The assured solutions list is NHS England's register of digital social care record systems that have passed its capability and standards assurance process, and it is where any shortlist should start. The list is published on the Digitising Social Care website, and every solution on it has been assured in line with the DSCR Capability Assessment and Standards Assurance Process, meaning it offers the core functional capabilities NHS England says a care provider needs from a DSCR. Assurance also plugs a solution into the wider programme: access to GP Connect requires an assured solution, and the grant funding distributed since 2022 was tied to buying from the list.
When checked on 6 August 2026, the list carried 22 assured solutions: Access Care and Clinical, Access Care Planning, Birdie, Care Control Systems, Care Vision, Careberry, CareDocs, CareLineLive, Cura Systems, Dom Portal by Decaura, Fusion eCare Solutions, Leecare Platinum6, Log my Care, Nourish, OneTouch, PASS by everyLIFE, PCS (Person Centred Software), QCS Care Management Software (formerly Carebeans), Qwikify, RoundSys, SOS Care Management System, and Tagtronics (TagCare). The Digitising Social Care site also publishes a decision tool that filters the list by the capabilities each solution offers beyond the core set.
Be equally clear about what assurance is not. It is not an endorsement of fit for your service: the CQC states in its guidance that it does not endorse or recommend any specific digital record system, and NHS England's assurance confirms capabilities, not suitability for a six-bed learning disability service versus a 200-client domiciliary agency. Nor is the list a ranking; solutions appear alphabetically, and several serve quite different settings. The assurance floor is real and worth insisting on, but everything above the floor - usability, support quality, migration help, price - is yours to test.
What funding is available in 2026
The honest answer is that the guaranteed national funding pot of 2022 to 2024 no longer exists in that form, and what remains is local and conditional. The People at the Heart of Care white paper committed at least £150 million to digitising the sector, and the DiSC programme distributed match funding through integrated care systems from 2022, alongside the Adult Social Care Technology Fund launched in April 2023. Those funded rounds drove the adoption curve documented above.
Today, the Digitising Social Care programme's own funding guidance says that funding "may" be available and that it depends on your location, your needs and whether you are CQC-registered, directing providers to identify funders locally. In practice that means your integrated care board (ICB) and local authority are the doors to knock on, and the availability of DSCR grant support now varies by area. The practical advice follows directly: ask your ICB's digital social care lead what is available in your area before you sign anything, and do not build a purchase business case on grant funding you do not have in writing. The economics of the purchase should stand on staff time and risk reduction, with any grant treated as acceleration.
Where CQC stands on digital records
The CQC does not require digital records, does not endorse any system, and inspects the quality of records regardless of format. Its guidance on digital record systems in adult social care points to Regulation 17 (good governance) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, which sets the minimum requirement: accurate, complete and up-to-date records for every person using the service, for staff employment and for management of the regulated activity. The regulation applies to paper and digital records alike. A care provider on paper is not in breach for being on paper.
Digital records change the inspection conversation in two documented ways. First, the CQC routinely examines records as part of inspection, focusing on the information itself, how it is used, and how securely it is stored and shared; structured digital records are simply easier to produce on demand than a filing cabinet. Second, the CQC's guidance on site visits is blunt about access: inspectors have legal powers under section 63 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to see records, providers are expected to give access in a timely way, and obstructing on-site inspection without reasonable excuse is a criminal offence. Your system, digital or paper, must let an authorised inspector see records promptly, which is worth remembering when a supplier demonstrates its audit and export screens. It is also worth knowing that the adoption statistics above are collected through the CQC provider information return, so a provider's DSCR status is already part of its regulatory record.
What GP Connect gives care staff
GP Connect gives CQC-registered care providers a restricted, read-only view of a person's GP record inside the care record system, and it is available only through the assured route. The Digitising Social Care programme's guidance sets two entry conditions: a DSCR from the assured solutions list that integrates with GP Connect, and "standards met" status on the Data Security and Protection Toolkit. Non-clinical staff, including registered managers and care workers, see a limited set: allergies, medications, immunisations, and the last three interactions with the GP practice. Clinical staff such as nurses can access the fuller record their role requires.
The conditions are as instructive as the capability. Providers must honour an individual's choice not to share data, publish the sharing in their privacy notice, produce information materials about the right to object, and train staff in data handling to DSPT requirements. The DSPT deadline is therefore not paperwork for its own sake; it is the gate to the most useful integration a care record system offers. By January 2025, the programme reported over 2,000 care providers already accessing GP records through their DSCR, with a government commitment to extend access to all providers over the coming years. The data protection groundwork is the same discipline any small organisation needs for cloud services generally; our guide to GDPR-compliant cloud storage for small businesses covers the day-to-day hygiene that the DSPT formalises for care.
What digital care records cost
Most assured suppliers price on quotation, and published list prices are the exception. Of the suppliers whose pricing pages we checked on 6 August 2026, Birdie publishes a starting price of £200 per month excluding VAT for its homecare platform. Log my Care publishes its plan structure - a Starter tier for providers with fewer than ten service users, Pro above that, and Outstanding for multi-site groups - but not the prices, and lists rostering, eMAR and its family app as add-ons to the Pro tier rather than inclusions. The other suppliers we checked publish no figures; expect a quoted price, typically after a demonstration.
That makes the commercial questions more important, not less. Ask on what basis the price scales (per bed, per service user, per staff member, per site), which modules are chargeable add-ons rather than core (eMAR, rostering, family portal and GP Connect integration all vary by supplier), what implementation, data migration and training cost up front, and how prices rise at renewal. The NIHR evaluation flagged ongoing affordability as a live concern for providers, especially small ones, after the initial funded period. Quote-only pricing also means the market rewards providers who benchmark before renewal; the discipline in our MSP pricing and procurement benchmarking guide transfers directly to care software.
The selection questions that separate a good buy from buyer regret
Buyer regret in this market is documented, not hypothetical. The NIHR rapid evaluation found evidence of suboptimal choice of DSCR system, buyer regret and outright abandonment, and concluded that implementation too often failed on poor supplier choice, inadequate planning and unresponsive suppliers. Its findings convert directly into a requirement-led checklist:
Offline working. The evaluation is unambiguous that a reliable offline mode was critical for functionality because internet access in care settings is patchy - which matches DHSC's finding that 14 per cent of residential providers lack full-building connectivity. If your building has dead zones, or your domiciliary staff work in rural signal gaps, test the offline mode with your own scenarios before buying, and ask what happens to records entered offline when connectivity returns. Continuity planning for the system itself matters too, for the same reasons set out in our guide to backup and disaster recovery for small organisations.
Usability on shift. The evaluation found unfamiliarity with technology was a genuine adoption barrier, mitigated by training and gradual rollout, and that staff with poor eyesight, dexterity or limited English struggled with some systems. Put your least confident staff member, not your most, in front of the trial system.
Medication and rostering integration. If you need eMAR - and 53 per cent of surveyed providers already use it - establish whether it is native, an add-on, or a third-party integration, and price it in from the start.
GP Connect. Ask whether the solution's GP Connect integration is live for providers like you, and what the supplier requires from your DSPT status to switch it on.
Migration from paper. Agree in writing who keys or scans existing care plans, how much history transfers, and how long you will run paper and digital in parallel. Keep independent copies of anything scanned; the principles in our remote backup guide apply to care records as much as to accounts.
Contract exit. Ask now, not at year three: in what format can you export your full records if you leave, what does export cost, and how long after termination is your data retained and retrievable? Records must remain available to you and to the CQC regardless of which supplier holds them. The NIHR evaluation's finding that some providers abandoned systems makes exit terms a first-order question, and the same red flags apply here as in any managed service agreement; our piece on exit clauses and hidden costs in UK IT support contracts lists the clauses to check.
Supplier responsiveness. The evaluation found a responsive supplier, able to fix technical problems and accommodate reasonable requests, was a decisive factor in successful implementations, and that providers in groups or franchises did better because they could draw on others' experience. Independent single-site providers should ask suppliers for reference customers of their own size and setting, and talk to them.
What a care provider should do this quarter
A provider still on paper can get from standing start to informed shortlist in a quarter without spending anything. The sequence:
- Register on the Data Security and Protection Toolkit and work towards "standards met". It is required for GP Connect, it is half of DHSC's definition of a fully digitised provider, and it forces the data protection basics into place before go-live rather than after.
- Audit connectivity honestly. Walk the building with the devices staff will actually carry; note dead zones. For domiciliary services, map where staff work offline. This becomes your offline-mode test script.
- Shortlist three from the assured list using the Digitising Social Care decision tool, filtered by your setting and the capabilities you need, and demo against your own scenarios: a medication round, an incident report, a CQC records request, a family update.
- Ask your ICB what funding exists in your area before contracts are discussed, and get any answer in writing.
- Negotiate migration and exit before signing. Both are cheapest at the point where the supplier still wants your signature.
- Plan the rollout around your staff, not the software: named champions, gradual cutover, and training that assumes no prior confidence with technology, as the NIHR evaluation found successful implementations did.
Where MSPs fit
For managed service providers, the last fifth of the care market is a serviceable vertical with a documented spend case, and most of the work is not the care software itself. The barriers care providers name - connectivity, cyber security cost, staff digital skills, data protection - are MSP staples. Wifi surveys and full-building coverage for care homes, DSPT attainment support, device management for shared tablets and phones, backup, and training for a workforce with high turnover are all deliverable today, and each maps to a barrier in DHSC's own survey data. A care group adopting a DSCR also needs someone to own the boundaries between the software supplier, the connectivity provider and the in-house team; the coordination trap is the one described in our piece on multi-vendor IT arrangements without gaps between providers. For MSPs weighing whether the sector is worth building for, the recurring-revenue shape of the work fits the model in our guide to selling monthly outcomes rather than hardware margin, and roughly one in six CQC-registered locations still without a digital record is not a small addressable market.
Sources
This article is built on primary documents: DHSC official statistics (Findings from the 2025 adult social care provider technology survey, published 6 March 2026, and the Adult social care provider statistics quarterly update to May 2026, published 4 June 2026), the People at the Heart of Care white paper (December 2021), DHSC's A Plan for Digital Health and Social Care (June 2022), the NIHR-funded rapid evaluation of Digital Social Care Records implementation (Health and Social Care Delivery Research, 2026), NHS England's assured solutions list and GP Connect guidance on the Digitising Social Care website (checked 6 August 2026), CQC guidance on digital record systems in adult social care, and supplier pricing pages checked on 6 August 2026.
