September 17th 2026
As part of Digital Care in Focus: Commissioning Month, we met with Mike Hanrahan, Commissioning and Contracts Lead at Wirral Council. We explored the Wirral’s approach to Technology Enabled Care (TEC), digital social care records, and data and cyber resilience; and how these are coming together to support financial resilience with more personalised care.
For the Wirral, commissioning TEC is about balancing two important priorities: achieving the best possible outcomes for individuals while working within tight financial parameters. Individual outcomes remain at the heart of decision making, but for a council working within tight annual budgets, financial sustainability is critical too. This can create a particular challenge for TEC, where investment is often needed in the short term to realise savings or avoid costs further down the line.
The council’s experience highlights the importance of finding opportunities where technology can deliver both: improving people’s experience of care and independence, while also helping to create more sustainable models of support. However, Mike explained that longer-term cost avoidance can be difficult to prioritise when immediate financial pressures are demanding.
The Wirral Council has commissioned an external provider to deliver its community equipment service, falls prevention service and TEC offer, including the Wirral Telecare Service. Alongside traditional telecare, the council is exploring remote and acoustic monitoring, digital social care records and the use of TEC data to inform care planning and review.
For Mike, technology is increasingly seen as part of a wider model of care, rather than a standalone service. The question is not simply what a device does, but what insight it provides, how that information can be used, how people respond to it and, ultimately, whether it can improve outcomes while supporting a financially sustainable approach to care.
Starting with the care need
The Wirral’s strongest immediate opportunities have emerged within Supported Living, particularly around overnight care.
Reviews of care notes identified settings where there was relatively little activity overnight, despite staffing models requiring regular checks or waking night support. The council began exploring whether technology could provide a safer and less intrusive alternative.
Remote, acoustic and visual monitoring are being used to understand what is actually happening overnight, enabling staff to respond when support is needed rather than relying on routine checks.
In some settings, this has allowed care models to be redesigned. For example, technology can support a more mobile response model, with staff responding to alerts across several neighbouring homes.
Through Strengthening Independence Through Technology funding from the Department of Health and Social Care, the Wirral received around £78,000 for Supported Living technology. The council reports that technology has already contributed to more than £400,000 in savings across three Supported Living settings, with further reviews underway.
Whilst financial savings were an important objective given the council’s financial pressures; the benefits are not simply financial. Reducing unnecessary checks has given people greater privacy, better sleep and more control over their own lives.
Technology that supports, rather than restricts
The Wirral’s approach has been shaped by conversations with people who draw on care and support, including older people, self-advocates, people with learning disabilities and autistic people, alongside providers and care staff.
These conversations highlighted that attitudes towards monitoring vary considerably. Some people welcome technology, while others have concerns about privacy and surveillance.
The council has therefore focused on clear explanations, choice and consent, helping people understand what technology does, what information it collects and how it supports their individual goals.
This has also led to a different conversation about what “safe” care looks like. In Supported Living, having staff physically present throughout the night can sometimes feel intrusive. Technology can provide reassurance that help will be available when required, while enabling greater privacy and independence.
Making data useful
For the Wirral, the next opportunity is to make better use of the data generated by TEC to drive better outcomes for individuals, and to inform longer term commissioning decisions.
Information about movement, falls, temperature, humidity and daily routines can provide insight that traditional care notes may not capture. Over time, this could help practitioners identify changes in a person’s circumstances and intervene earlier.
The ambition is for social workers, occupational therapists and wider multidisciplinary teams to use this information as part of assessments and reviews. Changes in movement, routine or falls could prompt a more targeted conversation and potentially earlier intervention.
This represents a shift from simply recording what has happened, towards using data to understand what might be changing, prevent issues occurring in the first place, and then using longer term data to commission services accordingly.
Digital maturity and cyber resilience
As the use of technology and data increases, Mike has recognised the importance of information governance and cyber security, and the risk this could pose to both care delivery and market sustainability.
Cyber and data protection expectations are now built into commissioning. The council has used contract management and grant processes to encourage Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) compliance. With support from the Liverpool Social Care Partnership (LSCP), one of Digital Care Hub’s Local Support Organisations, this has contributed to a reported increase in compliance across the Wirral’s care market from around 20% to more than 90%.
The approach is practical as well as contractual. The Wirral uses secure portals for sharing sensitive information, Data Protection Impact Assessments when data is transferred, and audits of providers’ DSPT and cyber security arrangements. These audits (completed by Liverpool Social Care Partnership) have enabled the Council to identify trends of challenge, good practice, and support needs meaning they have a robust understanding of cyber risk, cyber resilience, and cyber need; and can support accordingly.
Mike explained that the support from LSCP has been invaluable, with the organisation not only completing the audits, but also supporting providers to better understand their data protection and cyber security responsibilities, and then help them to complete the DSPT to evidence this.
Looking ahead: connecting health, care and technology
For Mike, the longer-term ambition is to explore how telecare and telehealth could work more closely together, bringing together the social care and health systems.
Currently, health and social care monitoring can operate through separate systems, with different devices, data flows and responses. A more joined-up approach could enable the right information to reach the right organisation at the right time, in a connected and collaborative way; whilst reducing costs and avoiding duplication.
This aligns with the emerging Neighbourhood Health agenda and the wider move towards proactive, preventative care closer to home.
For the Wirral, the opportunity is ultimately about more than technology. It is about using data intelligently, protecting it appropriately and redesigning and recommissioning services around what people actually need.
Its experience demonstrates how commissioning TEC can support financial sustainability alongside greater independence, dignity, privacy and confidence, while creating the foundations for a more preventative and connected model of care.
If you are a local authority wanting free help to support your social care market with data protection and cyber resilience, contact your Local Support Organisation – Local Support Organisations | Digital Care Hub
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