Opinion


same as customers don’t want to buy ‘care’ and local authority commissioners are listening to them. Commissioners are actively seeking


new models to replace tired, institutional residential and nursing care homes. They are looking overseas to the US, Australia and the Netherlands for innovation and asking “Why not here?” Plus, we know many people would


prefer to live at home and the push towards community services and away from building nursing homes has been happening for the past few years. Skills for Care research found that the number of residential establishments fell by 800 between 2009 and 2013, while the number of those that are non-residential increased by 2,400. Ultimately, many people would prefer


to live at home and they want to easily buy services that help them maintain their lifestyle. They don’t understand the jargon or how to navigate the system. It’s been made difficult for them. Not to mention the fact that the public sector needs to get much better at helping individuals access their direct payment options. Yet they are used to having good


customer service and a good customer experience in every other area of their lives. Is it any wonder that they get frustrated when they can’t get regular support delivered in their homes at a time that is convenient to them at the click of a button? There are UK care companies that are


already dipping their toes in the water of on-demand services. Within domiciliary care we’ve seen the recent national launch of Cera, which has been described as an Uber-style service that enables users to book carers as needed, and a similar service is offered by HomeTouch. Both organisations have harnessed


technology to make the process of finding, booking and paying for carers much easier for the customer.


The gig economy Uber is part of the ‘gig economy’, which enables service providers to be matched to consumers of on-demand services on a job by job basis. Service providers are self-employed and work is seen as a series of ‘gigs’ rather than full time employment. Almost five million people in the UK work this way.3 While the gig economy has received


bad press recently with claims of exploitation and volatility, there are lessons that can be learnt from it. Within a gig economy, there is no


massive hierarchy. People have more control over their own time and schedules and consequently there is greater


People have more control over their own time and schedules and consequently there is greater autonomy and motivation


autonomy and motivation. It appeals to a wide variety of people. In fact, an article by Bloomberg has found that it is now attracting workers aged 55 to 75 years as well as those with a bachelor’s degree.4


The care home We know that the care sector is suffering massive staff shortages and high turnover rates are common. The number of older people requiring support is fast outpacing worker numbers. Something needs to give. If we look at providing greater flexibility,


we could widen the talent pool we can draw from as well as preventing brain drain. Just think about the profile of your workforce. How many are women with children, and how many are aged over 55? Could this work for them? It could also make the care sector


more appealing to a younger generation. Millennials are unlikely to stay in one career for life; instead they tend to job hop or hold multiple jobs with passion projects on the side. A gig economy also puts control back


into the hands of the individual worker, enabling them to set their hourly rate, invest in their own personal development and deliver the quality of service they went into the care sector to provide. Plus, being part of a gig economy doesn’t mean you can’t belong to a network; it’s about grown-up, self-managed teams that are trusted by the brand that sells their services. Start with the people who serve and


you will get the best possible outcome for customers. What’s more, offering an on-demand service within which staff are deployed at the point of need is far more efficient.


What next? While Uber and its model is not the panacea for all of the care sector’s ills, it does offer some vital lessons and there are elements that can be applied to care home businesses now. Become more customer centric.


When thinking about your own operation, how easy is it to do business with you? What level of service do people receive at every point in the customer journey? Do you even know what your customer journey is? How would they define the


January 2017 • www.thecarehomeenvi ronment .com


customer experience, and would they recommend you? Act like a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.


Instead of fearing change, learn while trying things out and stop doing what doesn’t work without labelling it a failure. Collaborate with others in terms of people development, technology and digital, while not being so wedded to one idea that you refuse to change. Taking this approach means we will


develop a sustainable, multi-faceted ecosystem that will support all of us in all our individual ways for the long term. Fortune favours the brave!


References 1 Moore Stephens. 12% of care homes are at risk of going insolvent in the next three years. Moore Stephens, 2016 [www.moorestephens.co.uk].


2 Care Quality Commission. The State of Health Care and Adult Social Care in England 2015/16. CQC, 2016.


3 Marston R. ‘Gig’ economy all right for some as up to 30% work this way. BBC News, 2016 [www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37605643].


4 Fox J. The Gig Economy is Powered by Old People. BloombergView, 2016 [www.bloomberg.com].


Sara McKee


Sara McKee is an experienced and entrepreneurial board director with the proven ability to deliver results. She has boosted profits for major organisations, turned around ailing sales figures and transformed start-ups into multi-million pound companies. Sara has broken new ground with the development of Evermore, an innovative model that aims to eradicate institutionalised care and open up the market for older age living. Sara has also launched Evermore@Home to bring greater freedom, flexibility and control to older people who wish to remain living at home. Sara also has links to No 10’s Innovation Unit, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Communities and Local Government, as well as being a fellow of the Centre for Social Justice and leader of its Older Age Review.


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