A sector alliance on AI in social care: what to know
Two years of work on responsible AI in adult social care has become an alliance any provider can join, and a supplier pledge you can hold tech companies to.
Most sector statements are worth about as much as the paper they are printed on. This one is worth knowing about for a narrow, practical reason: it gives you a question to ask suppliers, and an answer you can check.
Where it came from
On 1 February 2024, representatives of thirty organisations and individuals working in adult social care met at Reuben College, University of Oxford. The meeting was convened by the Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI, the Digital Care Hub and Casson Consulting. It produced the Oxford Statement on the responsible use of generative AI in adult social care.
The Statement’s core idea is a definition rather than a rule. Responsible use means AI that supports, and does not undermine, harm or unfairly breach, the fundamental values of care: human rights, independence, choice and control, dignity, equality and wellbeing. It argued that responsible use has to rest on a definition of care built around human rights and trusting human relationships, not on efficiency.
It also committed the group to producing a shared, co-produced framework, practical guidelines, and a plan to upskill the sector.
What has happened since
On 27 March 2025, at the first AI Summit in Social Care, the same three organisations published a Call to Action, drawing on input from more than fifty stakeholders. It sets out six priorities: adopt the guidance, bring diverse perspectives into decisions about AI, develop regulation with government, support inclusive innovation, support new business models, and align national standards with ethical and legal frameworks.
Alongside it came a Tech Suppliers’ Pledge — principles on co-production, transparency, safety, fairness, data protection and accountability, which suppliers sign publicly.
On 17 April 2026, following the second summit in Oxford, the work became the AI in Social Care Alliance, convened by the Digital Care Hub with the Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI and Casson Consulting. Its stated priorities are to co-produce an “AI constitution for social care”, produce practical guidance on AI regulation and implementation, build a research hub, develop training for people receiving care and their families, and run an open network across the sector.
Why this is useful to a small provider
Three reasons, in order of how quickly they help.
You get a supplier question. Ask any AI company selling to you whether they have signed the Tech Suppliers’ Pledge. It is public, so you can check the answer. A supplier who has not signed is not disqualified, but a supplier who has not heard of it is telling you something about how close they are to this sector. Take it to a meeting alongside our supplier question sheet.
Joining is free and low-effort. Organisations opt in by endorsing the Call to Action, or the Pledge if they build software. For a small provider, endorsing a set of values you already hold costs nothing and puts you on a network where the practical guidance lands first.
An AI constitution is coming. If the Alliance delivers what it has said it will, there will eventually be a values statement written for social care that organisations can adopt and be held to. That is more useful than a general AI ethics framework written for banks.
What it does not do
The Statement, the Call to Action and the Pledge are all voluntary. None is regulation, none is enforced, and none of them tells you whether a specific tool is lawful to use with people’s data. A supplier can sign the Pledge and still hold your data in the United States without a data processing agreement. For that you still need to do the work yourself.
Start with the golden rules, then what CQC says about AI and telling people you support.