Managers in the social care sector face a unique set of challenges: increasing demand, budget constraints, staff turnover, and complex regulatory requirements to name a handful. Artificial intelligence (AI) offers promising solutions to many of these challenges, enabling managers to work more efficiently, make better decisions, and ultimately improve care outcomes.
This step-by-step guide will help you understand what AI is, how it can help you in your management role, and how to use it responsibly.
While the possibilities of AI are quite literally endless, we’ve focused in on four key themes for this guide:
- AI for recruitment
- AI for career development
- AI for office admin
- AI for marketing.
Throughout this guide, we’ve shared prompts using fictional examples to help you get started. We encourage you to use these prompts as inspiration, editing, expanding and iterating on them to suit your own needs.
Understanding AI in social care
Wait, what’s AI?
AI’s a bit of a buzz word these days, but do you actually know what it means? Well, in the simplest terms, Artificial Intelligence refers to computer systems that can perform tasks typically requiring human intelligence.
Things like:
- Understanding language
- Solving problems
- Creating content
- Recognising patterns in data
- Learning from experience
- Making recommendations
- Automating repetitive tasks.
It’s no wonder then that so many people are turning to AI tools like ChatGPT to streamline tasks, not just at work but in their home life too.
AI in social care
The social care sector has always adapted to new challenges and fresh opportunities. AI represents the next frontier in this evolution, offering tools that, when used wisely and with human oversight, can help managers recruit, retain, upskill and support their staff, and improve the quality of care offered within their organisation.
AI is already making an impact in social care through:
- Predictive analytics: Identifying risk and triggering care interventions
- Administrative automation: Handling documentation and reporting
- Care planning: Generating personalised care plans
- Resource allocation: Scheduling staff more efficiently
- Communication support: Translating between languages and simplifying complex information.
For more information on how AI is being used in social care, check out these inspiring case studies from the NHS.
AI for recruitment
You don’t need us to tell you that recruitment in social care is often challenging, with high turnover rates and difficulty finding candidates with the right skills and experience. According to Skills for Care, the social care sector faced a vacancy rate of 8.8% in 2024.
How AI can help
AI can help streamline the recruitment process, making it more efficient and easier for you to find candidates that are the right fit for your team.
Creating effective job descriptions
AI tools can help you quickly create effective and inclusive job descriptions tailored to different platforms (like job boards, social media and local newsletters).
Start by noting down the key elements of the role you’re recruiting for, including the skills and experience candidates will need.
Here’s what a prompt might look like:
I need to create a job description for a Care Coordinator position at a residential care home for elderly people. The role involves coordinating care plans, managing staff schedules, and liaising with healthcare professionals. The ideal candidate should have 2+ years of experience in social care, excellent organisational skills, and strong communication abilities. Our care home emphasises person-centred care and dignity. The role pays £13.50-£15.00 per hour depending on experience, with regular daytime hours Monday-Friday. Please create a compelling job description that highlights both the responsibilities and the rewarding aspects of working in social care, using language that will appeal to candidates who are motivated by making a difference.
Generating interview questions
AI tools can help you create role-specific questions that assess technical and soft skills essential for care work, and outline what to look for in a candidate’s answer too.
Here’s what a prompt might look like:
I’m interviewing candidates for a Support Worker position. The role involves providing personal care, emotional support, and activity assistance for elderly clients with varying degrees of dementia. Please generate 10 behavioural and situational questions that will help me assess candidates’ empathy, problem-solving abilities, and understanding of person-centred care. For each question, please also include what a strong answer might contain and what might be concerning in a response.
Preparing an onboarding plan
From offer documents through to welcome materials and training plans, AI tools can help you ensure your new hires feel welcomed and prepared to tackle the challenges of their role.
Here’s what a prompt might look like:
Please create a comprehensive 6-week onboarding plan for new care assistants joining our residential care home. This should include:
- A day-by-day schedule for the first two weeks
- A weekly outline for weeks 3-6
- Mandatory training requirements with suggested timeframes
- Documentation needed and when it should be completed
- Shadowing periods with experienced staff
- Regular check-in points for feedback and support
- Key milestones that indicate successful integration
- A “buddy system” framework for pairing new hires with experienced staff.
The plan should help both the manager and new employee track progress and ensure nothing is missed in the critical early period of employment.
AI for career development
With retention high on the agenda, continuous professional development is essential in social care. But creating and delivering effective training can be time-consuming. That’s where AI comes into its own.
How AI can help
AI can help you create tailored, timely and impactful training plans, simplify policies and prepare questions for career conversations.
Structuring training plans
AI tools can help you to create personalised learning paths tailored by role, learning style, experience, skills gaps and career goals.
Here’s what a prompt might look like:
I need to create a 6-month development plan for a Care Assistant who has expressed interest in progressing to a Senior Care role. The plan should include:
- Core competencies needed for the Senior Care role
- A timeline of suggested training and development activities
- On-the-job learning opportunities and mentoring suggestions
- Self-assessment tools to track progress
- Reflection prompts to encourage deeper learning from experience.
The staff member has been with us for 18 months, has completed all mandatory training, and shows particular strength in dementia care but needs development in leadership, documentation, and medication management.
Preparing for career conversations
Have you ever entered into a 1:1 conversation with a direct report and been met with silence? Sometimes, it can be hard to get the conversation going. AI tools can help you prepare for your conversation, providing questions that can uncover your team’s aspirations.
Here’s what a prompt might look like:
I’m meeting with a Care Assistant tomorrow who has been with our organisation for 2 years and has expressed interest in advancing their career. They are reliable, compassionate with clients, and have completed their Level 2 qualification. I want this to be a productive conversation that motivates them while being realistic about development needs and opportunities. Please help me prepare for this meeting by providing:
- A structured outline for the conversation with key talking points
- 8-10 powerful questions I can ask to understand their aspirations, strengths, and development areas
- Potential progression pathways I could discuss (e.g., senior care, specialisation, or coordination roles)
- Suggestions for how to handle potential challenges (like if their timeline expectations are unrealistic or if they lack self-awareness about development needs)
- A framework for documenting the outcomes and next steps
- Follow-up actions to maintain momentum after the meeting.
Include guidance on keeping the conversation balanced between encouragement and honest feedback about development needs.
Simplifying policy documents
Turn complex regulations into clear and accessible guides, one-pager summaries and checklists.
Here’s what a prompt might look like:
I have a 20-page medication management policy that staff find difficult to follow. Please help me create a simplified one-page visual guide that captures the essential procedures while remaining compliant with regulations. Focus on the daily medication administration process and common error prevention strategies. The materials should be suitable for staff with basic literacy levels and emphasise resident safety and regulatory compliance.
AI for office admin
Coordinating with clients, families and regulators, drafting reports, summarising meetings, preparing staff rotas. Administrative tasks often consume a disproportionate amount of time.
How AI can help
AI can automate many routine tasks, freeing up your time for more direct involvement with your team and clients.
Writing emails
No need to start from scratch. AI tools can help you create a wide range of content, including copy for documents, letters, posters and emails.
Here’s what a prompt for an email might look like:
I need to send an email to all staff about changes to our medication recording procedures following a recent audit. The changes include: double-checking all medication records at shift handover, using a new medication error reporting form, and attending a mandatory refresher training session (dates: 15, 16, and 17 May). Please draft a clear, professional email explaining these changes and their importance.
Summarising meetings
AI tools like otter.ai can take notes on your behalf during meetings, freeing up your time to focus on the conversation. You can also ask an AI tool to summarise your own meeting notes – just remember to avoid including any sensitive or confidential information.
Here’s what that prompt might look like:
I just finished a 45-minute staff meeting discussing the following topics: new infection control procedures, upcoming CQC inspection preparation, staff shortage concerns, and our upcoming client satisfaction survey. Please create a concise but comprehensive summary that I can share with the team, highlighting key decisions and action points.
Time management
Ace your admin with a time management plan tailored to your needs. AI tools can help you structure your day efficiently, prioritise tasks and reduce unproductive meetings.
Here’s what a prompt might look like:
As a care home manager, I find myself constantly interrupted and struggling to complete administrative tasks efficiently. Please help me develop:
- A structured workday template that incorporates:
– Protected time for administrative tasks
– Scheduled interruption periods
– Staff access times vs. focused work times
– Email/communication management blocks
– Strategic planning time
- A task categorisation system based on:
– Urgency
– Importance
– Regulatory necessity
– Delegation potential
– Required focus level
- Decision frameworks for:
– When to delegate tasks
– When to combine similar tasks
– When to schedule vs. immediately handle issues
– How to quickly prioritise competing demands - Meeting efficiency protocols to reduce time spent in unproductive discussions.
The system should be realistic about the unpredictable nature of care environments while providing more structure.
AI for marketing
Whether you’re trying to attract staff, reach potential clients and families, or build brand awareness in your community, marketing has become an essential part of the social care manager’s role.
How AI can help
AI can support your marketing efforts, without the need for dedicated teams or substantial budgets. Here’s just a handful of ways you can use AI for consistent and effective marketing.
Building a calendar of social media content
Got an empty social media profile crying out for some content? AI can help you plan and create timely and engaging social posts.
Here’s what a prompt might look like:
Please create 10 social media post ideas for our residential care home’s Facebook page. We want to showcase our person-centred approach, highlight our activities programme, and attract potential staff. Each post should be warm and engaging, around 30-50 words, with a suggestion for an accompanying image and a relevant hashtag.
Writing a newsletter
Keep your mailing list up to speed on your organisation’s news with an informative newsletter that brings your team’s work to life.
Here’s what that prompt might look like:
I need to create our monthly family newsletter for our home care service. We support around 60 older people in their own homes, and we send a monthly update to family members (with client permission). The newsletter needs to be informative without being too time-consuming to produce.
Please draft content for a May newsletter including:
- An introduction from me as the service manager highlighting our recent “Good” rating from our regulatory inspection
- A spotlight on a new care initiative we’re implementing (person-centred activity plans that better incorporate hobbies and interests)
- Staff recognition (we have two carers who completed the Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate this month, and we want to celebrate our Employee of the Month, Sarah, who was nominated by clients for her kindness)
- Upcoming changes to our scheduling system that will improve communication about visit timing
- A reminder about our family feedback survey coming up in June
- Seasonal health and wellbeing tips for older people during the warmer weather
- A community corner highlighting local events that might interest clients and families
- Contact information and how to raise any concerns.
The tone should be warm and professional, balancing good news with practical information. The newsletter should be designed to build trust with families and demonstrate our commitment to quality and transparency.
Responding to a review
AI can be a useful tool for crafting professional and constructive responses to reviews.
Here’s what a prompt might look like:
We received the following review on our Google Business page: “My mother has been receiving care from this agency for 3 months. The carers are mostly good but sometimes they’re late and don’t stay the full time. The office doesn’t always respond to my calls.” Please help me draft a constructive, empathetic response that acknowledges the concerns, offers a solution, and maintains our professional reputation.
A word of caution: The limitations for AI in social care
While this guide has only brushed the surface of what’s possible with AI, it’s important to understand its limitations too.
Just like humans, AI can make mistakes, and the information it shares can be outdated. AI tools can also produce results that seem plausible, but are in fact incorrect or non-sensical – this is known as an AI hallucination.
Consider AI your first draft – always review, sense and fact check, and personalise your work before sharing it with others. And don’t be afraid to iterate – the more tailored and in-depth your prompt, the better the result.
When not to use AI
- For critical care decisions: AI should never replace professional judgement in care planning or risk assessment
- For sensitive conversations: Difficult discussions with families or employees should always remain human-to-human
- When handling confidential information: Always be cautious about entering identifiable information into AI tools
- For medical advice: AI should not be used to make or suggest medical diagnoses or treatment.
Ethical considerations
- Transparency: Always be open and honest with your team and service users about where and how AI is being used
- Bias awareness: AI tools can reflect biases in their training data; always review what’s created carefully
- Complementing human care: Use AI to enhance, not replace, human interactions and judgment, or to disempower your team
- Digital inclusion: Consider your team’s accessibility needs when implementing AI tools.
Your AI toolkit
An ever-growing number of AI tools are available at no or low cost, making them accessible to teams working with the tightest of budgets.
You’ve likely heard of ChatGPT already, so here’s some other tools worth exploring to help you get started.
- Microsoft Copilot (free tier available)
Good for: Drafting documents, summarising emails, scheduling meetings
- Google Gemini (free tier available)
Good for: Drafting documents, answering questions, coming up with ideas
- Grammarly (free tier available)
Good for: Improving the quality of your writing in reports and communications
- Canva (free tier available)
Good for: creating visual materials like posters and leaflets with AI assistance
- Otter.ai (free tier available)
Good for: Note-taking during meetings.
AI has the potential to help social care managers work more efficiently, freeing up time to support your team and improve care delivery.
But remember, AI works best when it complements human skills and judgement, rather than replacing them. The most successful implementation of AI in social care maintains the human touch that’s at the heart of quality care, while using technology to handle routine tasks.
Do your research, start small, evaluate the results, get feedback from your team, and gradually expand your use of AI as your confidence grows.
Recommended reading:
Digital Care Hub: Oxford Project: The responsible use of generative AI in social care
NHSX: A buyer’s guide to AI in Health and Care
Skills for Care: How artificial intelligence can make social care better
