New start-up presents new model for care

A new start-up is seeking to let more people with dementia live in their own home by using technology.

Adam and Daniel Pike started SuperCarers in response to their own family’s experience with dementia. Their grandmother suffered with the disease, but preferred to stay in her own home. Lacking the finances to pay for private carers, the family relied on local authority carers until eventually Adam and Daniel’s mother took over. As the condition worsened, however, the family had to turn to residential care. The Pikes’ grandmother, they say, resented the decision, and made their mother feel guilty about it until the day she died. The impact is still with their mother even ten years later.

Recognising that 90% of over-50s who need care would rather stay in their own home, SuperCarers is attempting to reduce the costs by linking carers and families online directly, eliminating the need for agencies and their associated costs and overheads. SuperCarers acts as an introducer, and as such is not regulated by the CQC.

The Pikes argue that this gives more families more cost effective care over which they can exercise more control. Further, since SuperCarers is an introducer and not an agency, carers are self-employed and can set their own rates, meaning they will typically earn more than if they were part of an agency.

This new model has led to calls from some, including the UK Homecare Association, for the government to introduce new regulations to take account of changes in the health and social care market. This does not seem to be on the horizon, though. Further, SuperCarers seems to be taking its role seriously, with its team of advisers including luminaries from the CQC, the National Dignity Council, and even an ex-minister. It’s next step, according to the founders, is to build relationships with the NHS to help speed-up discharges and reduce the 445,000 days a year elderly people to spend in hospital while waiting for in-home care.