Published: 1st May 2025
By Care Innovation Summit
Ahead of his session at Care Innovation Summit, we spoke with Tom Ling, Head of Evaluation at RAND Europe, to hear his perspective on improving care through evidence, insight and innovation. With over three decades of experience advising governments and global organisations, Tom shares why better decision-making starts locally, how evaluation can lead to meaningful change, and what needs to shift for long-term improvement in the care sector.
You’ve worked across different sectors – how has this shaped your understanding of how care services can improve?
Tom: All services draw upon different ecosystems of knowledge, resulting in improving care. These balance formal research and evaluation evidence with informal experiential and often tacit knowledge. How we identify the knowledge to help us improve, how we access this, and how we then use this knowledge will dictate our capacity for improving care.
Your talk looks at what care can learn from other industries – what’s one lesson that stands out?
Tom: Leadership can only facilitate and support change from below – it cannot drive it. Its job is to create the conditions in which service users and their carers can add value.
What changes in the way we work or make decisions are needed to support long-term improvements in care?
Tom: The short answer is empowering service users and their carers but the longer answer is about ensuring that adequate resources and rewards are in place.
Why do you think new ideas from people working locally are more effective than applying one model everywhere?
Tom: Because social care works in a very rugged landscape – what works in one place may not work elsewhere.
What are the best ways to check whether new technologies are really improving care?
Tom: I find the Green Book which refers to the design and use of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) and the new Annex of the Magenta Book which covers best practice for evaluation of AI tools and technologies are both well founded – see here.
If you’re interested in how evidence, evaluation and innovation is improving care, don’t miss Tom Ling’s session at Care Innovation Summit.
