Building Connected Communities: Why Technology Must Focus on Problems, Not Products

1​0 November 2025

Alex Nash, Founder of Access Assure and Head of Strategy at Access HSC, argues that true care in the community requires transparency, integration and a fundamental shift from reactive to proactive services

As the government prepares its NHS 10 Year Plan with ambitious goals to shift from analogue to digital, sickness to prevention, and hospital to community care, the technology enabled care (TEC) sector stands at a crucial crossroads. The question isn't whether we need innovation – it's whether we're focusing on the right problems.

"I think it's around ensuring that we don't focus on the tech itself. We focus on the problem and how the utilisation of tech can solve those problems," says Alex Nash, whose Access Assure platform now supports over 50,000 people across Europe. This philosophy underpins what truly connected community care should look like.

The Integration Imperative

Access occupies a unique position in the market, while it has its own devices, its core value is in theplatform that sits above other manufacturers' alarm devices. This approach enables a path to upgrade existing digital estates to enable a proactive and preventative service. Access leverages its experience of providing solutions across health and social care to enable the delivery of insights directly into workflows professionals already use – from case management systems to domiciliary care platforms.

Nash's vision for connected communities is refreshingly straightforward: "Everybody that's part of somebody's care journey has a shared record of what's going on and they can all see the same things." Currently, different professionals access different fragments of information, hampering decision-making and outcomes. "In order to make the best decisions to achieve the best outcomes for an individual, I think it's really important that you can see the overall picture."

This extends to families too. When asked whether families should access the same data as professionals, Nash is clear: "If they've been given permission by the individual that they are looking after, they should have the same information as the professionals. I think that can only be a good thing."

Addressing Digital Exclusion

With AI dominating health tech discussions, concerns about job displacement are understandable. Nash directly addresses these fears: "It's clear that AI is not going to be replacing the role of a social worker or carer. It's going to be enhancing the job that they do, making sure that they can focus on the things that they did the job for in the first place." Social workers and carers, he notes, "didn't go into the care profession to be filling out admin forms and making notes, they went in to be able to care for somebody and provide support to those that need it."

Digital exclusion remains a critical challenge. Nash emphasises designing for accessibility: "Many people don't own a smartphone or can’t operate a smartphone. So, it's making sure that the solution that you've designed is accessible for the individuals that need to use it." He cites innovations offering multiple access routes - apps, phone services, or voice assistants - dramatically widening participation.

From Reactive to Proactive

The real transformation lies not in technology advancement but service model evolution. "That move to proactive care from cure to prevention, I think that's actually key," Nash explains. "Rather than just wait for somebody to press a panic button, actually looking at the softer signs that maybe there's been a change in activity and making that proactive call to intervene early."

Real-world impacts demonstrate this shift's power. Nash recounts how technology prevented unnecessary care home admission for a 90-year-old gentleman, with his family gaining reassurance through daily activity monitoring and the local authority the ability to accurately risk assess. Another case saw proactive monitoring save a life when the system detected unusually low activity in someone who'd injured himself but wouldn't press his panic button. "If the ambulance had turned up 24 hours later, it would have been a very different outcome."

The Economic Reality

Nash finishes with a final thought, "we can't afford not to embrace these new tools and the service models they enable, because the cost of not doing it is far higher than doing it."

As the TSA's Digitally Enabled Lives event approaches, Nash's message resonates: technology-enabled care isn't about replacing human connection – it's about creating the conditions where meaningful care relationships can flourish. With proper integration, transparency and focus on solving real problems rather than technical solutions, we can build truly connected communities that deliver the government's prevention agenda whilst preserving what matters most: human dignity and independence.