Care Creates: The conditions for technology to work
There’s a question that sits behind almost every conversation about technology and social care. Not “which device?” or “which platform?” but something more fundamental: what needs to change around the […]
Care Creates: Economic Value
Care Creates… Economic Value: why social care is one of Scotland’s most powerful economic engines There is a simple truth: social care is not a drain on Scotland’s economy instead it is one of its greatest generators of prosperity, wellbeing, and […]
Care Creates: Planning and Funding Care in Scotland
Planning and Funding Care in Scotland In Scotland, social care is under real pressure. Local authorities are struggling with tight budgets, and at the same time demand for care, whether […]
Care Creates: A Greener Sector for Healthier Communities and a Stronger Planet
Climate change is reshaping the world we live in, influencing everything from wellbeing to community safety. For the people who draw on social care, these impacts are often felt first […]
Care Creates: Collaboration & Integration
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years working across health and social care, it’s this: collaboration is rarely tidy, occasionally chaotic, sometimes hilarious, but always worth it. Integration is not a […]
Care Creates – Human Rights: The thread that holds us together
The period before any election provides us all with an opportunity to pause and to take stock, and to decide what matters to us both as individuals and as a society. For too long, adult social […]
Social Care as Prevention: the quiet revolution hiding in plain sight
There is a habit in Scotland, born of compassion, yes, but also of institutional muscle-memory, to treat social care as what happens after life has gone wrong. We reach for […]
The Soul in the Circuit: weaving humanity into tomorrow’s care
This extended blog is based on an opening address to the Northern Ireland Social Work and Social Care Research in Practice Conference, given in Belfast on the 11th March There […]
Holding liberty and safety in one hand: adult protection and human rights
The following is based on a talk given to the Adult Support and Protection in Supported Settings conference (ASPIRE) a couple of weeks ago. Every morning, somewhere in Scotland, a […]
Apricity: The warmth that breaks winter: a reflection on social care.
February is a month of thresholds. The earth is still held in winter’s grip, but the light is unmistakably returning. Days stretch by minutes, a shy lengthening, and occasionally, on […]
When words come home: Gaelic, memory and the meaning of care
There are moments when language stops being a tool and becomes a refuge. For me, Gaelic has always been like that. Not simply a language I inherited, but a way […]
At the rim of the world: Love in the world of care.
Love is not a word you will find in most policy documents. It does not feature in strategic frameworks, regulatory standards, or workforce planning spreadsheets. It is too soft, too […]
A sense of betrayal: social care and the SNP Government.
There are moments in public life when the gap between rhetoric and reality becomes so wide that it can no longer be bridged by warm words, sympathetic tones, or polished […]
Loneliness: Scotland’s quiet Public Health crisis
Walk any Scottish street and you will find, behind the closed doors and neat hedges, someone who feels profoundly alone. Age Scotland’s 2025 report puts it starkly: almost half […]
Planting what outlives us: on legacy and ageing.
There is a moment, often somewhere in our 50s or 60s when the future shifts its angle. The horizon draws closer, the noise recedes, and a quieter question makes itself […]
Care Creates: A Call to Action and a Vision for Scotland’s Future
The third Saturday of January 2026 arrives not with celebration, but with a heavy sense of reckoning. The Scottish Government’s newly announced Budget, for all its rhetoric of renewal, has […]
Bereavement and belonging: a call for constructive compassion.
The turning of the year always invites reflection and an opportunity to consider both personal and societal priorities and ambitions. It offers us an opportunity to reflect not only on […]
Human Rights Priorities for AI in Social Care: A Scottish Perspective
As the calendar turns and we stand at the threshold of a new year, I find myself drawn to reflection not least on what I consider to have been the […]
Four days to Hogmanay: a Scotland that cares
Four days before Hogmanay, Scotland feels like a country holding its breath. The streets glisten with frost after what feels like weeks of rain, a growing number of hills wear […]