Waves: Progress and learning from Stage 1
We are delighted to be sharing an update on Waves – the UK’s largest trial of digital democracy.
In Camden, Stage 1 of Waves has officially wrapped, having asked residents a simple but important question: “If you or a loved one needed care and support in the future, what would matter most?”.
We used Remesh’s digital platform to enable people to answer this open question, vote on other people’s ideas, and share their demographic details so we knew the range of people taking part.
So, as we progress through Stage 2, what have we learned?
Innovation comes with challenges
Naturally, Waves can occasionally bring some choppy waters… Initially, engagement was slower than we expected; there was some early uncertainty that we would reach a sufficiently large and diverse group of residents.
However, thanks to targeted recruitment – including direct text messages to residents, working through trusted local community groups, and sustained effort from Camden’s Engagement and Communications Teams – participation grew.
Crowdsourcing ideas to uncover residents’ priorities in care and support, we found that most suggestions were extremely reasonable and difficult to disagree with. People were concerned about affordability and funding, the treatment of carers and care workers, ensuring dignity and safety in care services, and many other ideas that are almost universally understood as being important.
So, when residents came to review and vote on other residents’ ideas, no clear winner or priority ranking could be evaluated from the results: almost all ideas were popular to a broadly similar degree.
We managed this challenge by grouping the ideas using Remesh’s AI-powered analysis tools, and mapping the many ideas into themes and sub-themes, which we refined manually.
We then worked out the frequency of these themes, and as a result evaluated which priorities were the most prevalent and popular, creating clearer, resident-led priority areas for participants to review further in Stage 2.
Residents are eager to be involved
Ultimately, we heard from over 1200 Camden residents and gained over 2200 unique ideas – gaining rich qualitative insights into lived experience, everyday frustrations, hopes, and concerns.
We have been genuinely blown away by the level of engagement. The quality and depth of resident input is truly invaluable for the future of social care in the Borough and beyond.
With this, we achieved our major milestones: engaging a large and diverse group of residents, reaching every corner of the Borough, surfacing a wealth of deep and meaningful insights, and gaining the momentum to dive into meaningful deliberation over the coming stages.
People have deep and nuanced views about care
Out of more than 2200 unique responses, 10 core priorities emerged about what matters most for care and support:
PRIORITY |
DESCRIPTION |
| Care with dignity and compassion | Care should be respectful, kind and personal. People should be treated as individuals with their own history, identity and preferences. |
| Support to live at home and stay local | People should be able to remain in their own homes and neighbourhoods for as long as it is safe and suitable. |
| Strong relationships and meaningful social connection | Care should support connection, belonging and everyday interactions that make life feel worthwhile. |
| Support for carers and care workers | Care depends on both unpaid carers and paid staff. Those who care should be valued, supported, and treated fairly. |
| Care that is affordable and funded fairly | No one should face financial hardship because they need care. Costs should be transparent and manageable for people. |
| Clear information and one place to find support | The system should be easier to understand, with clear guidance and a single route to get help and advice. |
| Choice and control | People should have agency over how they live and how their care is provided. Care and support should enable independence, not restrict it. |
| Oversight and accountability | Care and support should be transparent and accountable. People need clear standards, reliable inspection, and somewhere to turn when things go wrong. |
| Safe and reliable care that is responsive to changing needs | Care and support should feel dependable, consistent and safe, and people should be able to trust those involved. |
| Consistent, culturally sensitive relationships | Care and support should reflect personal identity, culture and background. |
Entering Stage 2 with real momentum
This gave us direction and momentum as we entered Stage 2, where a representative Residents’ Panel of 40 Camden residents is deliberating in depth – prioritising the outputs from Stage 1, understanding and making trade-offs, and developing more concrete actions for change.
More than 700 participants from the first stage expressed their interest in taking part in Stage 2 – demonstrating how much these conversations about care and support matter to people, and how strongly they value being part of the policymaking process. Working with the Sortition Foundation, we randomly selected the 40 Camden residents broadly representative of the Camden population from this pool so they could be part of the journey from start to finish.
Finally, in another significant milestone for the programme, our innovative approach to digital deliberative democracy and local policymaking was recognised at last month’s Smart Thinking Awards 2025, where Waves was nominated for the Innovation Award and received a “Highly Commended” distinction. It’s a proud moment for the whole team and reinforces the importance of what we’re building.
Stage 1 has shown us what’s possible when you bring people together, listen deeply, and trust communities to lead the way. It has also demonstrated the power of new digital tools to strengthen democracy and empower people.
We’ll update on Stage 2 in the next blog, where we’ll share how Camden’s Resident Panel deliberated on actions to address these priorities.
Thank you for staying with us and following this journey.