Digital Care Hub is offering free Digital Health Checks to help adult social care providers check if their data protection and cyber security arrangements are working in practice.
After a successful pilot in early 2026, the service is now being rolled out across England.
The check gives you practical, judgement-free support from someone who understands adult social care. You will get clear recommendations to help you improve how your service uses data and technology.
Adult social care is becoming digital by default. Care services are using more digital systems, holding more data and sharing information with more partners. This can bring real benefits for care, safety and joined-up support, but it also makes it even more important to keep personal information safe.
Benefits of a Digital Health Check
The health check is designed to give you peace of mind. It is not a pass or fail test.
- See what is working well in your current arrangements.
- Spot gaps early in policies, systems or everyday practice.
- Get practical advice from people who understand adult social care.
- Build staff confidence in safe information handling.
- Strengthen your DSPT evidence and prepare for future self-assessments.
- Support CQC and commissioner conversations by showing proactive action.
- Know what to do next with a confidential report and clear recommendations.
Tailored to small and medium-sized care providers
The service is mainly for small and medium-sized adult social care providers in England, including care homes, homecare services, supported living services, day services and individual sites within larger care groups.
It can be especially helpful if you:
- are unsure where to start with data protection or cyber security
- have taken on information governance from someone else
- want to know if your current arrangements are working
- have completed your DSPT and want practical next steps
- are preparing to complete or update your DSPT
- want to prepare for conversations with commissioners, local authorities, the NHS or CQC.
Complements the DSPT
The Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) is an annual self-assessment. It helps you check your data protection and cyber security arrangements.
A Digital Health Check is different. It is a free consultancy service that helps you test whether those arrangements are working in practice and how they can be improved. The two services complement each other.
Delivered by care and data protection experts
Your check will be carried out by one of our 32 local support organisations across the country. Which organisation supports you will depend on where you, or your head office, is based.
All our support organisations are local care provider trade associations with expertise in data protection and cyber security. And they already provide support on the DSPT.
Digital Health Check process and content
A Digital Health Check is a practical conversation about how your organisation handles information and keeps it safe. It is not an inspection. Your individual findings are not shared with commissioners, regulators or the central Digital Care Hub team.
Your local support organisation will explain what to expect. They may ask you to share documents such as your privacy notice, information asset register, policies or DSPT answers, if available.
The check can be in person or virtual depending on what works best for you.
During the check we will explore:
- Staff awareness: how staff understand their data protection responsibilities.
- Information flow: what personal or confidential information you hold, where it comes from and who you share it with.
- Policies and procedures: whether they are up to date and used in practice.
- IT systems and devices: how you manage passwords and software updates and how you protect your digital devices. With your permission, we will carry out a technical cyber security check on up to three of your computers.
- Business continuity: how you back up data and keep services running if systems fail.
After the check you will receive a confidential report. It will set out what is working well, any risks identified and clear recommendations for your service.
Care providers’ views
The pilot showed that providers value practical support that helps turn data protection and cyber security requirements into everyday action.
Providers told us the check helped them to:
- find gaps they had not spotted
- feel more confident about data protection and cyber security
- strengthen their DSPT evidence
- choose realistic next steps
- start useful conversations with staff.
56 care providers took part in the original pilot – and they all said they would recommend the health check to other care providers.
“The whole experience was invaluable to our knowledge, confidence and business. The health check has highlighted areas we need to work on and provided a great overview for the company.”
“A very easy and supportive experience, it helped to identify areas of weakness and how to improve them.”
Request your free Digital Health Check
The Digital Health Check is free to eligible adult social care providers. You do not need to have everything sorted with your cyber security before you book.
Contact us to request your free Digital Health Check or just to find out more.
