Project Care – Digitally disrupting the UK Social Care market

Big challenges demand big thinkers – those who can unlock the answers and further our understanding of the important issues of our time. The social care sector in the UK is beset by crisis. Several, overlapping crises are rolled into one. Local authorities are struggling to find adequate funding for social care, with their spending power reduced by over a third in the past decade, putting a massive strain on services. The means-tested approach to social care provision has not risen with inflation, pushing millions into debt as they are forced to self-fund their own care. All these pressures are leading to a diminishing quality of care as care providers offer one-size-fits-all packages, limiting at-home visits by carers with strict time slots that do not allow enough time for good-quality care. The system needs a fix. ProjectCare: a platform and user interface, will disrupt the adult social care market, placing individuals at the centre of their care by matching those needing care directly with those that can meet their needs and ensuring that care is delivered on Buurtzorg-inspired, relationship-centred principles. The approach is based on the hypothesis that business models adopted from elsewhere in the tech industry can help drive the personalization and improvement of care.

Building on the sharing economy model that has driven innovation in other sectors, Sitekit will disrupt current models of social care provision by creating a platform that gives its three member groups what they need: carers and care recipients will get direct access to the services they need, delivered to them on a Buurtzog-inspired care model that will improve care outcomes. Social Care workers and providers will get access to opportunities and the statutory sector will enjoy a consolidated social care market and greater insight into current and future needs.

ProjectCare will create a revolution in long-term care, by developing and piloting in two geographies our platform, demonstrating results and then scaling progressively across the country. The platform will provide a framework that puts individuals at the centre of their care, enabling service providers such as home care providers, voluntary and 3rd sector organisations, healthcare assistants, wellbeing coaches, advocates and others to offer applicable services that will enable people to take more control of their care or their time if they care for others.

UKRI work encompasses everything from the physical, biological, and social sciences, to innovation, engineering, medicine, the environment and the cultural impact of the arts and humanities. In all these areas, their role is to bring together the people who can innovate and change the world for the better. They are working with the government to invest over £8 billion a year in research and innovation by partnering with academia and industry to make the impossible, possible. Through the UK’s nine leading academic and industrial funding councils, they create knowledge with impact.

ProjectCare is a real opportunity to address the problems in the social sector by enabling individuals to take control over their care, ensuring they get the care they need, when they need it.