The Challenge

Engaging with seldom heard communities is essential to ensuring Adult Social Care is accessible to everyone who needs it. However, many people continue to face barriers to accessing information, advice and support because of language, culture, disability, digital exclusion, social isolation or a lack of trust in services. As a result, these communities often experience poorer health outcomes and inequalities in access to care.

Under the Care Act 2014 and the Public Sector Equality Duty, councils must take proactive steps to reach and support seldom heard communities. Demonstrating meaningful engagement, understanding the needs of different groups and evidencing the impact of this work are all increasingly important as part of CQC assessments, self-assessments and wider service improvement programmes.

Despite this, many organisations still rely on limited engagement data, making it difficult to understand who is being reached, identify unmet need and evidence that services are truly accessible and inclusive for every community.

The Solution

Understanding and evidencing engagement with seldom heard communities has traditionally been difficult. Aida changes this by providing accurate insight into who is engaging, when they make contact, the languages they speak, the questions they ask and the Adult Social Care themes most relevant to them.

Beyond headline metrics, Aida identifies emerging trends, tracks how needs change over time and provides both population-level insight and individual conversation examples. This gives organisations a clearer understanding of the challenges different communities face and the evidence needed to inform outreach, service improvement, strategy and self-assessment. Alongside these insights, every conversation provides trusted, accessible and personalised guidance, helping ensure people from seldom heard communities receive the support they need, whenever they need it.