Lee Trueman

Fuck me, watching your child struggle takes you somewhere dark. Not because you don't love them. Because you love them so much you would happily take every battle away from them if you could. My son is showing many of the same traits and struggles I recognise in myself. And it has made me think about the kid I was in the 90s. School was brutal. Being different wasn't understood. The reports were always the same. Try harder. Focus more. Apply yourself. But nobody ever stopped to ask the question: "Why is this so hard for you?" This week I watched my son struggle with something that looked simple from the outside. Rules around technology changed. To most people it was just a device. To him, it was a perceived injustice. A promise had been broken. The world suddenly didn't make sense. His little brain couldn't just flick a switch and move on. And that's the bit people don't always see. It's not about the thing. It's about how the world feels in that moment. As a dad, my job isn't to remove every obstacle. It's to stand next to him while he learns how to navigate them. To ask the questions nobody else thinks to ask. To be his advocate. Sometimes I wonder: Did I pass this down? Did I hand him my struggles? Then I remember something. Maybe what gets passed down isn't just the challenge. Maybe it's the understanding. Maybe it's the ability to see him in a way others might not. I want him to know what I wish I knew back then: I love you. Your path might look different, but different doesn't mean wrong. "It will all be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end."

‘Someone pour me up a double shot of whiskey They know me and Jack Daniel's got a history’ As the song goes that’s me tonight. Double poured, feet up, England kicking off at 10pm. The pubs will be doing Three Lions and Sweet Caroline. I’ll be shouting at my own telly. And it got me thinking about who else is up watching. In care homes, 10pm is two hours after most residents are “settled.” But the best homes won’t be settling anyone tonight. The lounge stays open. The telly goes loud. Someone who watched the ‘66 final tells a carer half their age why they’ve never trusted a quarter-final. Nobody writes “stayed up for the football” on a care plan. But that’s what living looks like. Enjoy the match. Come on England.

It's 4pm on a Friday. Someone's just asked me to "quickly" do something. My ADHD has looked at the request, looked at the clock, looked at the temperature in my office and simply replied... "Nah pal." Happy Friday to everyone whose brain clocked off before Outlook did. ☀️

If you're running acoustic monitoring at night, you made a good call. You proved something the rest of the sector is still arguing about. Responding to need beats checking on everyone. Residents sleep better. Unwitnessed falls drop. Council pilots are now publishing the same finding. So take the credit. You moved first. But acoustic was the toe in the water. It wasn't the swim. Listening has a limit. Sound reaches you after something has happened. A fall that ends quietly on carpet. A resident who slides from a chair without a cry. Silence is not the same as safe. What comes next reads the room instead of listening to it. Radar picks up the movement itself. It knows a fall as it happens, not after it lands. It knows a fall from a safe trip to the loo. It reads breathing and heart rate from across the room. No cameras. No microphones. Nothing worn. Night care has had three generations. Checking. Listening. Knowing. The homes that moved early on acoustic are exactly the homes I expect to move early again. If that's you, send me a DM. I'll put the next step beside what you already run and let you judge it. Spark Care

The world changes because of ordinary people doing small things with extraordinary kindness. Never underestimate your impact.

This is going to sound sycophantic. Don't care. I bloody love the care sector. I've sold in other industries. Nobody offers you a cuppa before you've sat down. Nobody remembers your kids' names. In care they do. Every time. These are people doing one of the hardest jobs going. Not enough money. Not enough staff. And they still turn up warm. Everyone talks about care like it's broken. The people in it aren't.

I read the latest Local Government Association report on adult social care this week. One idea kept coming back to me. For years, we've judged care by how well we respond when something goes wrong. But what if the future of care is judged by how often we stop those moments from happening in the first place? The report talks about a more preventative, person-centred approach to adult social care one that helps people stay independent and live well for longer. That isn't just a policy ambition. It's a mindset shift. I've had countless conversations with care providers over the years, and one thing is consistent: everyone wants to give the best possible care. The challenge is having the time, the visibility and the information to spot when someone may need support before a situation escalates. That's where I believe technology has a real role to play. Not by replacing carers. Not by making decisions for them. But by giving them the confidence to act earlier. It's one of the reasons I'm passionate about Silver Shield. When technology can provide timely, privacy-first insights into changes in a resident's wellbeing, it supports the people who know that resident best to make informed decisions. The future of social care won't be built by technology alone. It will be built by compassionate people, supported by better information. I'd love to know what others in the sector think. As we move towards a more preventative model of care, what do you think will make the biggest difference?

Morning rounds. A resident on the floor beside the bed. Everyone asks the same question. Nobody can answer it. How long have they been there? Not "did they fall". That bit's obvious. How long. The clinical picture hangs on that number. So does the safeguarding review. And in most homes, the honest answer is a guess. This is exactly what Silver Shield and NMS exist for. The radar knows the moment it happens. No cameras, no wearables, nothing for the resident to remember to charge. NMS puts the alert straight on the nearest carer's phone and logs the response time without anyone lifting a pen. The answer stops being "we don't know". It becomes "ninety seconds". If you've ever had to write "found on floor, time unknown" in an incident report, send me a DM.

It's not even 11am and LinkedIn is already full of leadership lessons from England going down to ten men at the Azteca. It was a football match. You watched it on your sofa eating crisps. Bellingham doesn't know you exist and he definitely isn't reviewing your Q3 strategy.

I got diagnosed with ADHD way too late. Two feelings hit me at the same time. Relief. Absolute, bone deep relief. Every revision session where I stared at the wall for three hours. Every time I started twelve things and finished none. Every school report that said "Lee has potential but needs to apply himself." It all made sense. Finally. And then grief walked in. Because that kid sitting in class, thinking he was thick, thinking everyone else had been given instructions he never got. That kid deserved to know. I sat with that for a long time. Decades of blaming yourself for something that had a name the whole time. I let that feeling visit but I didn't let it move in. Knowing now still counts, and it changes the way I parent and the conversations I have with myself on the bad days. If you got your diagnosis late, what hit you first?