AI 29 AUG 2

AI in Social Care – Second Focus Group Highlights

We have just wrapped up our second focus group exploring the use of AI in Social Care.

Our guest speaker brought AI to life, quite literally, with an AI Avatar to introduce her presentation. She shared her journey of using AI which started with integrating tools like ChatGPT and Co-Pilot into everyday tasks such as report writing and emails to make her life easier.  She then told us how AI helped to pinpoint health and safety issues from photographs, assisted with marketing, with understanding social media, developing coaching plans, IT troubleshooting and development of flow charts to aid learning.   We also found out we can create personalised GPT’s for projects and add or takeaway elements of photographs to enhance them.

Ethical concerns were discussed within the group and the implementation challenges of AI in care settings:

Human vs. business – There’s potential to improve efficiency, but we must not lose the personal, human-centred nature of care. This relates to those we support but also in our relationships with work colleagues (AI generated emails can be robotic not personal)

Environmental impact – Concerns about the energy use and sustainability of AI.  The amount of water and power used at the AI data centres.

Data security & integrity – Who owns the information we input? And how do we ensure the output is accurate, especially in sensitive care plans?

De-skilling risks – Are we training future professionals or just teaching them to prompt an AI? Do we need an extra layer to confirm workers understanding of the job.
We also explored:

  • Whether AI-generated CVs undermine authenticity in recruitment
  • The importance of upskilling staff – should staff be experienced in the job before utilising AI

We’re continuing the conversation and would love to hear from others in the sector.

➡️ What tools are you using? What’s working and what’s not? Let’s share learning to shape the future of care together.

If interested please email june.stephenson@yorkshirecarealliance.co.uk (copy in kerry.clarke@yorkshirecarealliance.co.uk)