CareCalls helps NHS trusts, local authorities and Integrated Care Boards reduce delayed discharge, improve medication adherence, free frontline staff time and support unpaid carers — using each person’s existing phone, with no hardware to install or stockpile, and same-day setup for as many reminders and check-ins as needed.
What public sector problems does CareCalls address?
Public sector care teams face pressures that are growing faster than budgets can follow. Delayed discharge costs the NHS roughly £2 billion a year. Medication non-adherence drives up to £4 billion a year in avoidable harm and hospitalisations. Falls in the over-65s add more than £2.3 billion to annual NHS costs. Meanwhile, adult social care carries 111,000 vacancies and 24.7% staff turnover, and 5.8 million unpaid carers report rising stress and burnout.
CareCalls sits inside the preventative-spend envelope that policy now pushes toward. It addresses each of these pressures with a single, low-friction service — automated reminders and check-ins delivered by phone or text to the person’s own handset. There is nothing to deliver, install or maintain, and a new service can be live within minutes.
| Problem | Scale | How CareCalls helps |
|---|---|---|
| Delayed discharge | ~£2bn/year; ~11% of bed days lost | Same-day setup before the patient leaves the ward. No hardware, no engineer visit, no waiting list. |
| Medication non-adherence | Up to £4bn/year; 10% of older-adult hospitalisations | Timed medication reminders acknowledged in real time. Missed acknowledgement triggers alerts to family, carer or professional. |
| Falls and unwitnessed incidents | £2.3bn/year; 250,000+ emergency admissions | Regular check-ins mean a fall or sudden illness is detected within the missed-reminder window — not hours later. |
| Staff capacity drain | 111,000 vacancies; 7% vacancy rate; 24.7% turnover | Unlimited automated reminders per person. New users activated in under 10 minutes by any team member. |
| Unpaid carer burnout | 5.8m carers; 74% stressed or anxious | Structured alerts and status visibility without constant phone calls. Dashboard accessible from any device. |
| Low telecare uptake | Devices stockpiled or left unused | No new device. The phone already in the home is the device. |
How does CareCalls reduce hospital discharge times?
Delayed discharge — sometimes called bed blocking — accounts for around 11% of all hospital bed days in England. In September 2025 alone, roughly 12,459 beds were occupied by patients fit to leave, at a unit cost of £562 per bed-day. Discharge teams need care packages that are effective, affordable and deployable quickly. Delays waiting for equipment delivery, installation or availability undermine all three.
CareCalls removes those delays. A discharge coordinator can configure a post-discharge reminder and check-in service before the patient leaves the ward — online, in under 10 minutes, using the patient’s existing phone number. Reminders can begin immediately on discharge day or be scheduled for a specific return-home date. The service supports new medication regimes, hydration prompts and daily welfare checks, and ongoing management can be handed to a family member or community team without additional training.
The model is already proven. In Camden, patients fitted with technology-enabled care returned home an average three days sooner, saving 630 bed days and £252,000 in a single cohort. Nationally, 20–40% of hospital readmissions in older people are considered preventable, with around 20% of those readmissions medication-related. CareCalls is a practical way to tackle that gap — from setup through to day-to-day delivery — without adding pressure to an already stretched workforce.
If you are considering how quickly a service can start, see how long until CareCalls starts delivering.
How does CareCalls improve medication adherence?
Around half of patients do not take medication as prescribed, and an estimated 10% of hospitalisations in older people are directly attributable to non-adherence. For conditions managed by blood thinners, blood pressure tablets, insulin or pain relief, a missed dose is not a minor slip — it can trigger a cascade ending in an emergency admission.
CareCalls delivers timed medication reminders by phone or text. The person acknowledges each prompt in real time — by pressing a key during a phone reminder or replying to a text. If they do not respond after configured retries, an alert is sent to people in their support network — a family member, professional or carer, by phone, text or email. This closes the gap between a missed dose and someone knowing about it.
For a broader view of the outcomes families and professionals see, read what outcomes to expect from CareCalls.
How does CareCalls support frontline staff and unpaid carers?
Adult social care in England faces a workforce crisis: 111,000 vacancies, a 7% vacancy rate — three times the wider economy — and a projected need for 470,000 additional posts by 2040. Staff already in post spend significant time on welfare and medication-prompting phone rounds that could be automated.
CareCalls frees that time. Unlimited reminders and check-ins run automatically for each person on the service. Professionals set up a new user in under 10 minutes and can then hand day-to-day management to family stakeholders through a passwordless portal — meaning ongoing adjustments do not create further demand on professional time.
For the 5.8 million unpaid carers who prop the system up — 74% of whom report stress or anxiety, 43% of whom say caring has worsened their physical or mental health — the service replaces the cycle of repeated phone calls and visits with structured alerts and daily visibility. When a reminder is acknowledged, carers know the person was reachable and responsive. When one is missed, they are notified so they can act rather than worry. That shift is consistently described by families as the difference between carrying a constant weight and getting on with the day.
Why does CareCalls succeed where other telecare struggles?
Traditional telecare — pendant alarms, sensor kits, connected pill dispensers — requires procurement, warehousing, delivery, installation and device training. Each step introduces delay and cost. Uptake is often disappointing: pendants are left on bedside tables, sensors go unconfigured, and devices are stockpiled by procurement teams faster than they can be deployed.
CareCalls is different because the technology is already in the home. Reminders and check-ins are delivered to the person’s existing phone — landline or mobile — by phone call or text message. There is nothing to order, deliver, install, charge or explain. The person does not need to learn a new device or remember to wear one.
That makes the service particularly suited to cohorts where traditional telecare struggles: people who refuse to wear a pendant, those who forget to charge devices, anyone discharged from hospital before equipment can be arranged, and situations where speed matters more than a full assistive-technology assessment. Pendant-style telecare and sensor monitoring complement CareCalls rather than compete with it — CareCalls owns the proactive prompting and check-in layer that reactive alarm systems do not provide.
For a detailed comparison, see how CareCalls compares to other solutions.
How is CareCalls funded in the public sector?
The economic case is straightforward: a single avoided hospital admission or care placement offsets many months of the service. The Better Care Fund 2025/26 allocated £5.6 billion of NHS minimum contribution plus a £2.64 billion Better Care Grant, with prevention, home adaptations and care technology listed as priority uses. Government commissioning guidance expects all Integrated Care Boards to be running digitally enabled commissioning systems by 2027.
CareCalls fits squarely within Care Act 2014 preventative duties — the kind of spend the Act was written to enable. Two billing models are available for funded organisations:
- Credit-based (pre-paid) — the organisation purchases a block of user-months up front and draws against it as people are activated. Volume discounts reward larger commitments. Best for teams with allocated annual budgets and a defined target cohort.
- Pay-as-you-go — billed monthly based on active users. Lower commitment, suited to early pilots or demand-led budgets.
For individuals and families exploring whether public funding may already cover their service, our funding checker and guide explains the options.
What does CareCalls offer public sector organisations?
- Unlimited reminders and check-ins per person — predictable per-user cost with no per-delivery metering.
- Same-day setup — online in under 10 minutes, no engineer visit or waiting list.
- Customer service for all stakeholders — phone, email and web chat support during working hours, with out-of-hours cover.
- Fully digital — no reliance on the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), no pendant hardware, no devices to refresh on the PSTN switch-off timeline.
- Real-time dashboard — active users, delivery status and projected impact, suitable for governance reporting.
- Designed for delegation — professionals set up the service; families and the person themselves manage day-to-day through a passwordless portal.
- Data and insights — delivery and response data the commissioning body can use to demonstrate impact and inform future strategy.
To understand how reminders and check-ins work day to day, see how the repeat service works. For the full range of people the service supports — including those with dementia, Parkinson’s, learning disabilities and frailty — see who CareCalls helps. For a copy-ready fact sheet for directories and intranets, see the UK publication pack.