Co-Creating Rural Health Solutions: The Living Lab Approach of Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre

In the heart of northeast Scotland, the Rural Centre of Excellence (RCE) is redefining how digital health and care services are designed, delivered, and experienced in rural areas. Backed by a £5 million UK Government investment through the Moray Growth Deal, this initiative is led by the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI) in partnership with Moray Health and Social Care Partnership (MHSCP) and the people of Moray.

With a mission to co-develop accessible, scalable, and inclusive digital health solutions, the RCE is helping Moray emerge as a leading innovation hub, shaping the future of health and wellbeing across Scotland and beyond.

Responding to Rural Realities

For over a decade, communities across Moray have voiced their frustrations about the everyday barriers they face when trying to access health and care support. Through sustained engagement with citizens, frontline staff, and service providers, the Rural Centre of Excellence has identified three core challenges that persist in rural health and care:

• Accessing Trusted Support
  People often struggle to find reliable, up-to-date information about health and wellbeing services available in their area—whether online or within the community.
• Fragmented Services
  Health and care systems frequently operate in silos, meaning citizens are forced to repeat their story to each new provider. This leads to frustration for users and inefficiency for clinicians, who must spend precious time piecing together a person’s history and current needs.
• Rising Demand vs Limited Capacity
  Services are overstretched, with more people seeking care than current systems and staff can support. This creates bottlenecks, long waiting lists, and stress for both service users and providers.

Integrated Solutions Through Innovation

In response, the RCE is building a connected ecosystem of digital solutions that are being developed, tested, and refined in real-world settings through a Living Lab model:

• Community Connections Moray
  A locally tailored digital directory where citizens can easily access information and support on a wide range of health and wellbeing topics. This one-stop-shop approach empowers people to navigate services more confidently and independently.
  🔗 Learn more
• Personal Data Store (PDS)
  A secure tool that allows users to tell their story once and manage how and with whom their data is shared. Citizens are placed at the centre of their care journey, with full control over their information. Local services are involved in ensuring support is available for those who may struggle with digital engagement.
• Five Thematic Living Labs
  These co-creation spaces bring together citizens, service providers, academic partners, and digital innovators to develop and test new technologies that respond to real community needs. The solutions are agile, inclusive, and built for scale.

Together, these elements create a supportive digital environment that enhances access, efficiency, and personalisation across Moray’s health and social care system.

The Five Living Labs in Action

Living Lab 1: Supported Self-Management

Focusing on tackling the growing challenge of obesity, this Lab promotes preventative self-care and healthy lifestyle changes. It connects residents to personalised information and resources to help manage weight and reduce the risk of related conditions like high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.

Living Lab 2: Long-Term Condition Management

This Lab supports individuals with type 2 diabetes in maintaining their health through timely access to appropriate services. The emphasis is on using community-based solutions to ensure that limited clinical capacity is focused where it’s needed most.

These first two labs led to the development of an integrated model called Heart of Moray, a wellness community where people managing weight or long-term conditions can access information, tools, and support. Digital solutions are being gradually introduced into this model through the RCE and its partners.

Key partners for LL1 & LL2:

• NHS Grampian Dietetic Service in Moray
• Clinical staff managing type 2 diabetes in Moray
• Moray Leisure Centre
• RCE

🔗 Heart of Moray – Improving health and wellbeing together

Living Lab 2B: Community Occupational Therapy

This Living Lab responds to a sharp increase in demand for occupational therapy services, particularly for equipment and home adaptations. Citizens with moderate needs can face up to 18-month waits for an assessment. This project aims to make the process quicker and easier, offering better support and increased self-management capacity through three key tools:

1. ASKSARA
   A digital tool providing personalised, impartial advice on equipment and adaptation options. It helps users find solutions they can purchase privately, based on their specific needs. This will be integrated into the Community Connections Moray platform, alongside information on service eligibility, average waiting times, and referral options. Testing begins summer 2025.
2. Enabled Self-Referral
   By pulling data already stored in the Personal Data Store, citizens can generate OT service referrals without filling out repetitive forms. This approach results in better-quality digital referrals and faster triage. Testing date to be confirmed.
3. Digital Assessment Pathway
   For those meeting eligibility criteria, this tool enables remote assessment and rapid access to equipment—skipping long waiting lists. Testing date to be confirmed.

Living Lab 3: Care in Place

This Living Lab focuses on helping people stay well and supported in their own homes, starting with unpaid carers in the communities of Forres and Lossiemouth. The Lab is testing how two core tools, Community Connections Moray and the Personal Data Store (PDS), can improve how services engage with individuals and how individuals navigate the system.

The first service being integrated into this model is the Quarriers Moray Carers service, providing a vital touchpoint for unpaid carers who often feel overwhelmed or disconnected from formal systems. Through this Living Lab, unpaid carers will be able to:

• Create their own digital profile using the PDS
• Share their story once and consent to pass it securely to the service
• Avoid repetitive paperwork and streamline the referral process
• Generate high-quality, pre-filled referrals based on their own inputs

Pilot testing will take place throughout summer 2025. Future developments will integrate services like community nursing, occupational therapy, and social work into the platform.

Living Lab 4: Smart Housing, Smart Communities

This Living Lab addresses one of the most pressing issues facing social care infrastructure: the UK-wide transition from analogue to digital phone networks by January 2027. Many traditional telecare alarms will no longer work. Rather than replace them like-for-like, the RCE is piloting a proactive model of Technology Enabled Care (TEC).

Using discreet sensors installed in people’s homes, the system monitors everyday patterns to identify changes that could signal a decline in wellbeing. This data can trigger early interventions, preventing crises and reducing pressure on services. It also provides peace of mind for families and carers.

• Pilot testing begins in June 2025 in Buckie and surrounding areas

In collaboration with BE-ST (Built Environment Smarter Transformation) and the Moray Growth Deal Housing Mix Delivery Project, this Lab is also co-developing a digital blueprint for smart, adaptable, and affordable homes. A prototype smart home is being considered for the Dallas Dhu in 2027, combining construction innovation with wellbeing-enhancing design and digital care solutions.

Living Lab 5: Mental Wellbeing

The newest Living Lab focuses on improving mental health services and access. It begins by integrating mental wellbeing information into the Community Connections Moray platform. The team is also developing bundles of recommended resources for common mental health needs.

Scoping for a broader research and development project is underway, with the goal of creating tailored, responsive tools to support community mental wellbeing in an inclusive way.

Building Capacity and Digital Confidence

Demonstration and Inclusion Hub

Following a detailed research phase, the RCE is developing a proposal to create a physical hub in partnership with Health & Social Care Moray. This space will be designed to increase citizen and workforce understanding of digital solutions across the wider Moray region.

Certified Training for Carers

RCE has launched the Digital Essentials for Carers course, a short accredited training programme delivered through UHI Moray. The course is free and open to anyone in the region.
🔗 Access the course

Demonstration Simulation Environment (DSE)

Located at the Alexander Graham Bell Centre, this state-of-the-art space allows stakeholders—including citizens, care providers, academics, and developers—to test digital solutions in a real-world setting.

Monthly Information Sessions

Free information sessions are hosted monthly in the DSE. Anyone interested can join by booking through the DHI website.
🔗 Book a session

Sustainability and the Road Ahead

With funding secured until May 2026, the RCE is laying the foundations for a long-term, sustainable innovation ecosystem focused on rural health and care. Its core objectives include:

1. Fostering economic growth through a thriving regional innovation network
2. Developing scalable digital solutions that shift care toward prevention and personalisation
3. Strengthening academic and workforce capacity to meet future sector demands

DHI’s ambition is to attract inward investment and build on the current success to make RCE a permanent, national asset. The goal is to connect more services and further embed person-centred, holistic, and preventive care based on the broader social determinants of health.